RESEARCH INTERESTS: fMRI Studies of Visual Perception and Memory

I have been using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to characterize the brain structures involved in visual perception, imagery, and memory. Functional MRI is a technique that permits the localization of regions in the human brain that are activated during cognition, with fine spatial and temporal resolutions (millimeters and seconds, respectively).  Due to its non-invasive nature, fMRI is particularly useful for studying the neural basis of higher cognitive phenomena, like visual imagery, which are not easily simulated in animal models. I have found that visual representations of faces and objects in ventral temporal cortex (the so-called “memory storehouse”) are widely distributed and ‘top-down’ modulated by a cortical network of parietal and frontal regions. The goal of my new projects is to understand effective connectivity and experience-dependent changes within these cortical networks. Specifically, I use faces and paintings as stimuli and my subjects, healthy normal volunteers, perform various cognitive tasks in the MR scanner, e.g., they rate facial attractiveness or assess the aesthetic affect of art compositions.

Women in Films

Alumit Ishai, PhD

Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience

Institute of Neuroradiology

University of Zurich

Raemistrasse 66

8001 Zurich, Switzerland

 

Phone: +41 44 635 34 40

Fax:     +41 44 635 34 49

Email:    ishai @ hifo.uzh.ch