Research Areas

The Gulati Laboratory research interests are in motor-systems neuroscience, especially in how motor control and motor learning are enacted by motor networks in intact and injured states. The Gulati Lab is using electrophysiology tools in rodents and humans to study these processes at the single neuronal and network level. Our rodent studies are geared toward gathering a mechanistic understanding of neural processes that underlie motor control and skill consolidation. Profiling this activity in injured states, such as stroke, can be especially effective in identifying biomarkers for recovery that can then be targets for augmentation through electrical stimulation. The immediate goals of the Gulati Lab are to characterize emergent neural activity in cerebello-cortical ensembles with motor learning, and to test the efficacy of closed-loop stimulation to these areas in a brain recovering from stroke.

The Gulati Laboratory is also interested in understanding how these supraspinal circuits relay information to spinal outputs that instantiate specific muscle patterns during execution of motor tasks. The Gulati Lab characterizes this output as muscle synergies, which, from a diagnostic standpoint, can be a useful metric in motor injuries. We are interested in evaluating muscle synergies in the intact nervous system, post-injury, as well as employing muscle synergies to check the outcome of our interventions aimed at promoting recovery.

Leveraging the strong human neurophysiology research at Cedars-Sinai and using the knowledge derived from our basic studies, the Gulati Laboratory is also working toward implementing targeted circuit manipulation strategies that include neuromodulation and brain-computer interfaces in clinical populations.