New York, New York, United States
Ignacio Saez, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Neuroscience, Neurosurgery, and Neurology and the Director of the Human Neurophysiology Laboratory at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Friedman Brain Institute. His research focuses on understanding how human cognition arises from the interaction of multiple brain areas and neurotransmitter systems, particularly in decision-making behavior. Dr. Saez's research involves studying prefrontal cortical and subcortical areas directly in the human brain by conducting intracranial electrophysiology recordings in patients undergoing neurosurgical treatment. Dr. Saez aims to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the neurobiological basis of human decision-making behavior, which could lead to the development of novel neurotherapeutic approaches for psychiatric conditions, such as depression. Prior to his current position, Dr. Saez was an Assistant Professor at UC Davis Center for Neuroscience and completed his postdoctoral work at the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business, and Virginia Tech. He earned his Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine. In addition to his academic work, Dr. Saez advises on translational neuroscience, neurotechnology, targeted neuromodulation, intraoperative neurophysiology, and brain–computer interface (BCI) technologies.
During my postdoctoral work in the laboratories of Robert T. Knight and Ming HSu I studied human decision-making, with special interest in computational and mathematical models of economic decision-making and their biological substrates. My work involved a combination of: -Tasks from behavioral economics, neuroeconomics and game theory to parse and quantify human behavior, including inter-subject variability. -Mathematical and statistical models to perform rigorous quantitative analysis of behavior and to classify behavior into discrete categories. -Neural recordings and manipulation of physiological activity including functional magnetic resonance imaging and pharmacology. -Analysis of inter-subject genetic variability and how it relates to individual decision-making behavior.
During my thesis work, I became more interested in high-level cognitive questions than those afforded by cellular studies. Thus, for my first postdoctoral stay in the laboratory of Read Montague, I decided to move from ex vivo animal studies to in vivo human studies. To leverage my training, I became involved with a project that required expertise in electrophysiology to perform recordings in human brains during surgery for the treatment of Parkinson's Disease. Parallel to this, I trained in functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), the main technique used to study human cognition, which required me to learn new computational and statistical techniques, and to acquire coding skills. My project revolved around the role of the neurotransmitter dopamine in valuation and decision-making mechanisms. I combined a variety of experimental methods with computational models of reinforcement learning to study human neural activity in two main projects: Sub-second electrochemical (fast-scan cyclic voltammetry) recordings of dopamine concentrations in dopaminergic target nuclei (primarily striatum) of human patients during a neuroeconomic task. High-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of human midbrain nuclei (dopaminergic and non-dopaminergic) during a simple decision-making task.
In this short postdoctoral stay I continued working in my PhD laboratory, finishing up my thesis research projects. In addition, I acted as lab manager to coordinate the move to a new Research Institute.
During my PhD, I studied the electrical connections between individual neurons in an ex vivo animal prep. The underlying goal was to understand how individual neurons communicate, and how the connections between them (synapses) can be modified by experience, a cellular level of learning and memory. Electrophysiology: multiple (quadruple) patch clamp, loose patch in acute slices. Optical imaging: differential interference microscopy (DIC) microscopy, confocal and fluorescence imaging, two-photon imaging.