Sonya Bahar, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Biophysics
Director, Center for Neurodynamics
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Missouri at St Louis
One University Boulevard
St. Louis MO 63121
Tel: 314-516-7150
Fax: 314-516-6152
Email: bahars@umsl.edu
Education:
BS in Physics, Drexel University, 1991
MS in Biophysics, University of Rochester, 1993
PhD in Biophysics, University of Rochester, 1997
Editor (with Prof. Wokyung Sung) of The Journal of Biological Physics , published by Kluwer. Editor of "The Biological Physicist", newsletter of the Division of Biological Physics, American Physical Society. Check out the latest biophysics news.Curriculum Vitae (pdf version)
My current research is primarily focused on synchronization in mammalian neural systems.
With Daisuke Takeshita, I am investigating computational models of neural synchronization as well as imaging synchronization during seizures in the rat neocortex. Our imaging techniques involve both the intrinsic optical signal and voltage sensitive dye imaging. Roxana Contreras is studying of eye-target synchronization in human brain trauma patients, and the relationship of this synchronization with attention and cognition. Nathan Dees is investigating how nonlinear dynamical techniques can reveal the relationship between the fMRI-BOLD signal and EEG recordings in human subjects. Doug Brumm is using the intrinsic optical signal to investigate the response of neocortical tissue to focal cooling during seizures. Kaushalya Premachandra is investigating the intrinsic optical signal response to direct electrical stimulation of the cortex, in collaboration with Research Assistant Professor Vassiliy Tsytsarev.
Watch seizure activity, imaged with the intrinsic optical signal, spreading through the brain.
Recent Research I:
Neural synchronization in the crayfish caudal photoreceptor.Recent Research II:
Imaging hypoxic spreading depression in rat hippocampal slices.Recent Research III: Complex Dynamics in Cardiac Systems
Bistability and hysteresis in the response of periodically paced small pieces of bullfrog cardiac tissue. Phys. Rev. Lett. 82:2995-2998, 1999.
Spatiotemporal effects of bistability in coupled map models of cardiac dynamics (published in the Proceedings of the 5th Experimental Chaos Conference, Boca Raton, Florida, July 1999).
Control of fibrillation using nonlinear dynamics based methods in the in vivo sheep heart.
Bistability and Hysteresis in the Periodically Paced Sheep Heart.
Recent Research IV:
Monovalent and divalent anion transport in the band 3 and AE2 proteins (doctoral thesis).
Recent Research V: Fractals and Nonlinear Dynamics
Attractors generated by iterated function systems.
Time Delay Embeddings of IFS Attractors
Symbolic Dynamics in IFS Attractors
Apparently Chaotic Orbits Embedded in Closed Curves written with Irene Hueter
Photo by August Jennewein