Dr. Kamran Diba

Biography

Kamran Diba is an Associate Professor in the Anesthesiology and Neuroscience Graduate Program at the University of Michigan. His research focuses on understanding how the brain represents, coordinates, stores, and transfers information. The Diba Lab conducts studies on the role neuronal networks play in generating oscillations that vary based on the behavioral state of the animal, including active exploration, resting, and sleep or anesthesia stages. The lab utilizes large population recordings of spiking neurons in rodents to observe state-dependent temporal relationships across multiple timescales. Diba’s research interrogates the unique spike patterns of neurons to discern their functionality and limitations under different brain states. In this work, he combines behavioral studies of freely moving and learning rats with multi-channel recordings of simultaneous electrical activity from hundreds of neurons during behavior and sleep, employing statistical machine learning tools to uncover the deep structure of high-dimensional spike trains. Additionally, his team leverages chemo- and opto-genetics to manipulate protein signaling and action potentials in specific neural populations at precise time windows.

Research Interests