Ben Singer

Ben Singer joined the lab in 2003. He is working on the PhD portion of his MD/PhD as a member of the Neuroscience Graduate Program. This semester he is also a teaching assistant for medical gross anatomy.

Ben divides his time between two projects in the lab, both of which analyze neural activity from both a spatial and temporal perspective. In his project examining information processing in the olfactory system, Ben uses a photodiode array and voltage sensitive dyes to record population activity across the surface of the olfactory bulb. Using this approach, we are examining the role of modulatory input from central odor processing regions in the olfactory bulb.

In collaboration with Miron Derchansky and Peter Carlen at the University of Toronto , Ben is also studying the spatiotemporal dynamics of seizures in an in vitro model system. Using time series analysis tools developed in the lab as well as computational models of neural networks, this work is examining the role that heterogeneity in connectivity and excitability throughout the hippocampus plays in the genesis, propagation, and extinction of seizure activity.