Avniel Ghuman, PhD
Associate Professor of Neurological Surgery
Faculty in the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition
University of Pittsburgh
Abstract: The hospital environment provides unique opportunities to study human behavior, its physiological underpinnings, and how it is affected by pathology. For example, this environment provides the opportunity to study how real-world behavior and various aspects of physiology interact, and how these brain-body-behavior interactions are modulated by clinical pathology. Such research can also lead to novel insights into doctor-patient communication. Along with these opportunities comes a host of ethical considerations around consent and privacy for patients, clinical staff, and hospital visitors. This RESI seminar will discuss recent work studying the neural basis of social behavior using simultaneous behavioral and neural recordings in epilepsy patients while they have conversations with friends, family, and experimenters, as well as general ethical considerations surrounding natural behavioral recordings in a hospital setting.
This seminar is sponsored by the Center for Bioethics & Health Law and the Research, Ethics and Society Initiative (RESI) of Pitt Research.
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