Bio:
Aaron Kucyi is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. He completed a PhD at the University of Toronto, followed by postdoctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School and Stanford University.
Kucyi directs the Dynamic Brain and Mind Lab, a cognitive and clinical neuroscience research program. The Lab has a scientific focus on the neural basis of subjective experiences that occur during spontaneous thought, mind-wandering, and rumination. These experiences occupy up to half of a person’s typical waking life and significantly impact mental health. With an improved understanding of the variability in mental life across different individuals, the Lab aims to facilitate the development of personalized neuromodulation tools that can promote healthy patterns of thinking and experience.
Kucyi’s research involves various techniques in human neuroscience, including functional MRI (fMRI), intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG), and scalp EEG. Study participants include healthy individuals and various clinical populations. Current research projects involve real-time fMRI, simultaneous EEG-fMRI, experience sampling paradigms, and computational analyses of brain network data.
Kucyi’s research has appeared in journals such as PNAS, Nature Communications, and the Journal of Neuroscience. His efforts have received support and funding from the National Institute of Mental Health, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation.