Synesthesia

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In synesthesia, information between the senses is blended. Letters might trigger the experience of colors, or sounds the experience of taste, or many other combinations. My laboratory has tested and verified over 20,000 synesthetes, and we are working to understand how it sheds light on consciousness, from the genetics to the neural networks.

Time perception

brainclockgears

To understand the neural mechanisms of time perception, David's lab combines psychophysical, behavioral, and computational approaches to address the relationship between the timing of perception and the underlying neural signals.

Neurolaw

lawbook David is founder and co-director of the Center for Science and Law, which studies how new discoveries in neuroscience can navigate the way we make laws, punish criminals, and develop rehabilitation.

Sensory Substitution

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Can sensory data be fed through unusual sensory channels? And can the brain learn to extract the meaning of such information streams?

Yes and yes. Sensory substitution is a non-invasive technique for circumventing the loss of one sense by feeding its information through another channel.

Other Projects

Other projects in our lab include the use of real-time feedback neuroimaging to break drug addiction, intervention programs in high-violence neighborhoods, word aversion, illusory motion reversal, the flash lag effect, a theory of cerebellar glomeruli, extracellular calcium as a neurotransmitter, and dopamine and human decision-making. Click to learn more.

brainexplorers

Deep brain recording in humans

DBS

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) targets deep nuclei in the brain to help with Parkinsons Disease or tremor. During surgery, we have a window to measure the responses of single neurons in the human brain. While the recording electrodes are in place, we present sights and sounds to a patient while the responses of the neurons are recorded. Find out more.

From the Blog

Your brain constantly re-calibrates its timing.

Hear my friend Alan Burdick discuss his new book on time perception...
Book extract from "The Brain: The Story of You" in the Financial Times

Our drive to come together into groups yields a survival advantage — but it has a dark side.
Discovering amulets inside the mummy

I posted before about my scanning of a 3,000 year old mummy, Neskhons. Now, by analyzing the data in several different ranges of electron density, I've found something unexpected: inside the mummy's torso are 4 small funerary amulets.
CNN's Next List - video profile

I was named a CNN Next List Fellow. Watch two clips from the show.

In other news...

McGovern Award for excellence in Communication

David was honored to receive the 2014 John J. McGovern Award for Excellence in Biomedical Education from the American Medical Writers' Assocation. Noted past recipients include authors Oliver Sacks and Abraham Verghese.

Science Educator Award

David has won the Science Educator Award from the Society of Neuroscience.

Eagleman TED Talk

See David Eagleman's TED talk entitled "Can we create new senses for humans?"

Learn more about the Science

Antiphospholipid Syndrome

Far to the left-field of my normal research, I'm pursuing a new hypothesis: whether there is a connection between people who get envenomated by the asp caterpillar, and the acquisition of antiphospholipid syndrome (APS)