Big news! 🎉 The lab will be moving to Duke University in 2025 where I will serve as a tenured Professor in the Departments of Neurosurgery & Biomedical Engineering!

Nanthia Suthana studies the neural mechanisms of cognition and behavior. The @SuthanaLab at Duke Neurosurg. is using using advanced neuroimaging and electrophysiology technologies to investigate and treat neurological and psychiatric disorders. #PTSD https://t.co/6OuA2TK1H1

Excited to announce that I’ve been awarded an NRSA F30 grant from @NIMHgov ! To study neural mechanisms of avoidance/pursuit during human ambulatory navigation. Special thanks to mentors @SuthanaLab @ausaf and all with the @uclacaltechmstp @dgsomucla for support and guidance!

It’s official-My lab has moved to Duke University! Excited to start as a Professor of Neurosurgery and Biomedical Engineering and for the new collaborations and discoveries ahead.

Absolutely thrilled to be joining @StanfordNsurg! This dream has been decades in the making, made possible by the support and sacrifices of so many. Grateful beyond words- hope to make you proud and hope to make a difference!

Congrats to former PhD student & lab member Sabrina Maoz!! 🥳👏🎉 Stanford is lucky to have you!

Congrats former PhD student & lab member @_iamjay !! 🥳🎉 Stanford is so lucky to have you!

See links to example research in human programs👇 https://t.co/KWVSfskB8j And example papers from clinical trials👇 https://t.co/03IkvmXZbP https://t.co/1gUOQspSOh https://t.co/0EBSfmJHyS https://t.co/kp72yJjYDP https://t.co/sDWIW5HQwG https://t.co/A88KzSPdOz

In just 10 yrs, BRAIN has enabled human research I never thought possible, leading to first-in-human discoveries & breakthrough treatments for PTSD, Depression, OCD, Parkinson’s & more. For many of these patients, they will tell you it’s the reason they are alive today.

Without the BRAIN Initiative my lab & others doing human neuroscience research would not exist. Before BRAIN, only a few labs could do intracranial recording & stimulation studies. Now there are many, making breakthroughs & life changing treatments. This progress is at risk.

This means a loss of $81 million for Neuroscience, putting life-saving research at risk of being shut down. Read more:

I recently spoke at a Congressional briefing with a military veteran from our PTSD clinical trial on the life-changing impact of the NIH Brain Initiative. Watch here👇 https://t.co/XjgO8OWCkx The BRAIN Initiative is now facing a 20% cut on top of the 40% last yr…

Suthana et al. studied brain recordings from implanted electrodes in freely moving humans. They show that neural dynamics encoded actual and imagined routes similarly. @SuthanaLab @m_seeber https://t.co/tKardIicUs

8/ Memory-guided navigation engages structured hippocampal theta, which persists into imagination → Spatial memory & mental simulation share neural mechanisms. Thank you NIH funding, 1st author @m_seeber, amazing lab team, collaborators, & participants who made this possible!

7/ Participants wore eye-tracking headsets 👀. When walking right-turn-only paths, they made more rightward eye movements, and leftward for left-turn paths. Even during imagination, their eyes still followed a similar pattern! 🤯⬅️➡️

6/ The hippocampus, more than nearby regions, showed shared theta activity between real and imagined walking, but not control trials suggesting 🧠 may be replaying the journey

5/ Between trials, @m_seeber had them walk on a treadmill. Sometimes they could think about anything (control trials); other times, they were explicitly told to imagine walking the same paths. 💭

4/ Take a look at the theta bouts (larger 🧠 waves) right before turns. The timing is striking! 👀

3/ Theta 🧠 activity increased in bouts right before turns. And Participant 2? That extra turn they took- theta increased there too!

2/ While they walked, hippocampal activity along with motion capture & eye-tracking were recorded.

1/ Participants memorized two paths, one with only rightward turns, & one with leftward turns, & walked them from memory. Everyone learned them well, but look at Participant 2…they consistently added an extra turn.