The dynamics and patterning of neural activity and communications between brain areas in the cerebral cortex are of deep interest to neuroscientists. Better understanding cortical physiology may allow us to address a number of medical and societal challenges, from understanding the basis of epilepsy to understanding human cognition, sleep, dreams and even methods for interfacing computers to the brain to overcome major neurological and psychological problems.

The Cash lab is probing how the brain works, both under both normal and pathological conditions, with an ultimate goal of developing techniques for diagnosing and treating some of the most devastating diseases. We are particularly focused on using approaches that extract information at multiple scales and then combine them into a more complete and meaningful understanding of brain physiology. We feel this multi-scalar, multi-modal approach is particularly powerful for understanding the human brain because of its complexity and architecture, which is, by nature, multi-scalar. This information can then be used to design therapeutic interventions including brain-computer (machine) neuroprosthetics that can restore function for those patients suffering from a wide variety of neuropsychiatric diseases. We employ non-invasive measures of brain activity (MEG, EEG, fMRI) and structure (MRI) to get a holistic view of the brain.  We also use very specialized methods of recording directly from either human or rodent cortex including techniques to record the activity of single human neurons while patients are awake (microelectrode recordings) and optogenetic methods to control individual neurons.