Exploring Brain Evolution and Motor Cortex Expansion

Today, we are excited to have Dr. Evan Gordon on the podcast. Evan is an assistant professor in the Neuroimaging Labs Research Center, based in the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Since joining the group and joining forces with what is known as the "midnight scan club," he has gone on a scientific tear, publishing several highly influential papers that make use of the unique high-fidelity data sets, containing up to 11 hours of resting state or task-activated fMRI data for each subject. This powerful approach in fMRI is known as "deep sampling." His findings include insights into unique individual connectivity patterns,  the whole brain use of a novel parcellation approach using boundary maps, and most recently, discovery of effector-specific regions in motor cortex - a finding which is likely to replace in textbooks the classic Penfield maps of the homunculus. 

This was a wonderful conversation where we explored the implementation, benefits, and potential of deep sampling of fMRI data! Evan is not only a creative and productive scientist, but a great conversationalist. We hope you enjoy it!

Episode producers:

Omer Faruk Gulban

Alfie Wearn