Description of Research Expertise

I study human cortical organization for vision, and how this organization is altered by neurologic and ophthalmologic disease. Human visual cortex is composed of early, “retinotopically” organized visual areas, as well as more specialized, “categorical” areas that process specific visual features (such as facial appearance). My work has varied along two dimensions within this research space: scale and perturbation. I have examined the organization of visual cortex from its large-scale, anatomical arrangement to the precise and subtle form of population neural coding for object features. These studies at different scales of cortical organization have further been conducted both in healthy controls as well as in patients for whom visual function has been perturbed by retinal disease or cerebral dysfunction. I make use of a variety of scientific techniques, although the majority of my research uses BOLD fMRI, which is a non-invasive measure of neural activity in human participants.

Selected Publications

Kaiser E A, McAdams H, Igdalova A, Haggerty E B, Cucchiara B, Brained D H, Aguirre G K: Reflexive Eye Closure in Response to Cone and Melanopsin Stimulation: A Study of Implicit Measures of Light Sensitivity in Migraine Neurology : 2021.

Barnett M A, Aguirre G K, Brained D H: A Quadratic Model Captures the Human V1 Response to Variations in Chromatic Direction and Contrast eLife : 2021.

Workman CI, Humphries S, Hartung F, Aguirre GK, Kable JW, Chatterjee A.: Morality is in the eye of the beholder: the neurocognitive basis of the "anomalous-is-bad" stereotype Ann N Y Acad Sci. : 1-15,2021.

Patterson-Gentile C, Joshi N R, Ciuffreda K J, Arbogast K B, Master C, Aguirre G K: Developmental Effects on Pattern Visual Evoked Potentials Characterized by Principal Component Analysis Translational Vision Science & Technology : 2021.

Vincent J, Haggerty E B, Brainard D H, Aguirre G K: Melanopic stimulation does not alter psychophysical threshold sensitivity for luminance flicker Scientific Reports : 2021.

Chen M, Nofziger J, Datta R, Gee J C, Morgan J, Aguirre G K: The influence of axial length upon the retinal ganglion cell layer of the human eye Translational Vision Science & Technology 9 (13): 1-14,2020.

Darwich N F, Phan J M, Kim B, Suh E, Papatriantafyllou J D, Changolkar L, Nguyen A T, O’Rourke C, He Z, Porta S, Gibbons G S, Luk K C, Papageorgiou S G, Grossman M, Massimo L, Irwin D J, McMillan C T, Nasrallah I M, Toro C, Aguirre G K, Van Deerlin V M, Lee E B: Autosomal dominant VCP hypomorph mutation impairs disaggregation of PHF-tau Science 370 (6519): eaay8826,2020.

Cieslak M, Cook P, He X, Yeh FC, Dhollander T, Adebimpe A, Aguirre G, Bassett D, Betzel R, Bourque J, Cabral L, Davatzikos C, Detre J, Earl E, Elliott M, Fadnavis S, Fair D, Foran W, Fotiadis P, Garyfallidis E, Giesbrecht B, Gur R, Gur R, Kelz M, Keshavan A, Larsen B, Luna B, Mackey A, Milham M, Oathes D, Perrone A, Pines A, Roalf D, Richie-Halford A, Rokem A, Sydnor V, Tapera T, Tooley U, Vettel J, Yeatman J, Grafton S, Satterthwaite T.: QSIPrep: Robust workflows for preprocessing and reconstructing diffusion MRI Nature methods : 2020.

Patterson Gentile C, Aguirre G K: A neural correlate of visual discomfort from flicker Journal of Vision 20 (7): 1-10,2020.

McAdams H, Kaiser E A, Igdalova A, Haggerty E B, Cucchiara B, Brainard D H, Aguirre G K: Selective amplification of ipRGC signals accounts for interictal photophobia in migraine Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 117 (29): 1730-17329,2020.

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Academic Contact Information

Department of Neurology
3400 Spruce Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Phone: 215-662-3390
Patient appointments: 800-789-7366