Unite and conquer to understand the brain
Some problems can only be solved by changing your perspective. Understanding the brain’s complexity requires that you consider many perspectives all at once. As a postdoctoral researcher, Dr. Reza Farivar was exposed to the power of integrating multiple domains to advance brain research—specifically, how transplanting methods and models between fields opens up new ways of measuring brain functions. That experience motivates his integrative approach.
As Canada Research Chair in Integrative Neuroscience, Farivar is helping guide the way through the brain’s intricate mechanisms for vision by creating tools and models that span disciplines. The many processes going on in the brain at any given moment can each be measured with different tools and techniques. Farivar’s lab is integrating all of this diverse information into one coherent picture.
His lab combines behavioural measurements and neuroimaging, neurophysiology in animal models, brain stimulation, rehabilitation research, computational modelling, and MRI hardware development. This approach is revealing the mechanisms of brain function during visual processing, as well as their failure in disease. His team incorporates studies of traumatic brain injury and amblyopia (impaired vision) to develop better models and treatments for these disorders.
Farivar’s transformative, unifying research will be useful across many fields of neuroscience. His work has already given us valuable tools and knowledge about brain processes at the fine scale: how they get disrupted, and how they can be restored.