Research fields

The lab studies the psychological and neural mechanisms behind perception. Most cognitive neuroscience research looks at how the brain processes information from the outside world, sights, sounds, faces, objects. The Avidan Lab takes a broader view, also studying how the brain perceives signals from inside the body, a much less explored area known as interoception.

Perception, whether of the external world or the internal body, is not a fixed process. It shifts based on the properties of the stimulus itself and on factors specific to the person experiencing it, including prior experience, personality, and physical, emotional, and mental state. The lab studies these interactions using a combination of functional and structural brain imaging, behavioral and physiological measures, and computational approaches that map connectivity patterns in the brain linked to specific abilities and individual differences.

This research spans both healthy individuals and people with specific neuropsychological conditions affecting perception and cognition, work that spans the lab's three core research areas below: