Abstract

Combining non‐invasive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) with functional MRI allows an unprecedented degree of control in probing neural circuits in awake humans. By inducing activation at a key node in a neural network, the communication partners of that region area can be functionally elucidated. This strategy has implications across cognitive neuroscience but also specifically in defining novel neurotherapeutics. Our work has sought to map prefrontal communication to deeper brain areas most often implicated in affective disorders including the amygdala, subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, and ventro‐medial prefrontal cortex. I will present evidence for direct and indirect pathways to these subcortical targets with prefrontal single pulse TMS interleaved with fMRI in healthy individuals as well as evidence for disrupted circuitry in psychiatric patients. Testing the functional role of these circuits, I’ll present preliminary findings from behavioral assays and psychophysiology that incorporate targeted TMS to the same prefrontal sites.

 

Biography

Dr. Oathes is a licensed Clinical Psychologist and an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Penn State working with Bill Ray and Tom Borkovec and completed postdoctoral research at the University of Wisconsin—Madison (working with Jack Nitschke, Richie Davidson, and Ned Kalin) and Stanford (working with Amit Etkin). His work has appeared in JAMA Psychiatry, American Journal of Psychiatry, and PNAS.