Internal KCN: Sharp-wave/ripples in rodents and primates - insights, challenges and ideas

Bio: Ivan graduated with MD from the University of Split in Croatia and did his PhD on PET imaging of brain serotonergic system in depressed humans and rodent models of depression. While doing this work at the Montreal Neurological Institute, fueled by reading Gyuri Buzsaki’s book ‘Rhythms of the Brain’, he became interested in memory and electrophysiology. This led to a postdoc with Bruce McNaughton at the University of Lethbridge (Alberta)/University of California (UC) Irvine, using tetrode recordings in rats to probe the hippocampal-cortical interactions during wakefulness and sleep. During this period, he developed a long-term interest in sharp-wave/ripples, as one of the most revealing windows into brain dynamics underlying learning and memory. Finally, he got involved in human intracranial electrophysiology, working with Jack Lin at UC Irvine/UC Davis, as a part of a BRAIN Initiative consortium involving the non-human primate, human and computational simulation components, aiming to decipher the integration of feedback information in rule learning. He published in journals such as the PNAS, Neuron and Nature Communications, and was awarded with multiple Canadian research fellowships (CIHR and Alberta Innovates). He joined Taufik's lab in July 2023 and is working on the projects linking the electrophysiological correlates of memory encoding/retrieval in human brain with eye tracking. He is also setting up several additions to Neuron2Brain Lab, such as the recordings of single neurons from ambulating human subjects and intraoperative high-density cortical recordings from awake patients.