Leo Towle, Ph.D.



		V. Leo Towle, Ph.D. Associate Professor Department of Neurology Department of Surgery Committee on Neurobiology Committee on Computational Neuroscience Laboratory web page
	Functional imaging of the human cerebral cortex. These are exciting times to study human brain electrophysiology. In times past, we could only describe the electrophysiologic correlates of cognition, sensation, and behavior. It is now possible to determine where in the brain human electrophysiologic waveforms are generated, which tremendously increases the value of such studies. During the last few years I have been developing electrophysiologic models and determining the location of human sensory and motor cortex. This information is of critical importance during many neurosurgical procedures. In collaboration with Dr. David Levin in the Department of Radiology, I have recently developed a technique to map and validate electrophysiologic dipole localizations using MRI images and surgical mapping procedures. The ability to noninvasively map important cortical areas onto brain anatomy before surgery has the potential of reducing the morbidity of some risky surgical procedures. During this period I also published papers on cognitive dysfunction in diabetes with Dr. Kenneth Polonsky in the Department of Medicine. A second area of interest is the analysis of electrophysiologic lateral coherence patterns recorded from the surface of the human cortex and from functional MRI studies. Such analyses may lead to an empirically based understanding of information processing networks in the human brain. I will be relating such dynamic patterns to behavioral and cognitive tasks, and the spread of epileptic discharges in humans. I would like to further integrate my source localization studies with the unique MRI image processing capabilities at the University of Chicago. My intraoperative recording procedures provide an opportunity to validate not only my own noninvasive brain mapping techniques, but also functional MRI maps. The electrophysiologic techniques that I and my colleagues have developed here at the University of Chicago are changing the field of human electrophysiology, from an isolated discipline to one that is integrated into mainstream human brain imaging. This will allow me to noninvasively map human brain function onto cortex in such a way that the resulting maps will allow us to answer fundamental questions about brain functional organization as it relates to cognition, behavior and plasticity.
References
Mhoon, E.E., Bernstein, L.P., and TOWLE, V.L. Saccular influence on the otolith-spinal reflex and posture during sudden falls of the cat. American Journal of Otolology, 1997, 18: 86-92. Proctor, T.B., Velde T.M., Dayal, V.S., Bhattacharyya, T.K., Artwohl, J., and TOWLE, V.L. The auditory brainstem response in young and old guinea pigs. American Journal of Otology, 1998, 19: 226-229. TOWLE, V.L., Khorasani, L., Berkson, E.M., Syed, I., Pelizzari, C.H., Jewett, D., and Spire, J-P. Human somatosensory evoked potential dipoles: How accurate are the localizations? Proceedings of the IEEE-EMBS, 1997, 19: 2616-2621. Pietro, S., TOWLE, V.L., Cakmur, R., and Spire, J-P. Maturation of human visual evoked potentials: 27 weeks conceptual age to 2 years. Neuropediatrics, 1997, 28: 318-323. Cakmur, R., TOWLE, V.L., Mullan, J.F., Suarez, D., and Spire, J-P. Intra-operative localization of sensorimotor cortex by cortical somatosensory evoked potentials: From analysis of waveforms to dipole source modeling. Acta Neurochirurgica, 1997, 139: 1117-1124. TOWLE, V.L., Syed, I., Berger, C., Grzesczcuk, R., Milton, J., Erickson, R.K., Cogen, P., Berkson, E.M., and Spire, J-P. Identification of the sensory/motor area and pathologic regions using ECoG coherence. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 1998, 106: 30-39. TOWLE, V.L., Carder, R.K., Khorasanil, L., and Lindberg, D. Electrocorticographic coherence patterns. Clinical Neurophysiology, 1999, in press.
	Last updated 11/23/99