Randolph Helfrich, MD, PhD

Human goal-directed behavior results from the coordinated activity of widely distributed brain regions. Randolph Helfrich's central question is how neural circuits efficiently implement stable and consistent behaviors, but remain malleable to support cognitive flexibility. His overall goal is to understand how ever-changing brain activity supports cognitive processing. To determine the importance of the temporal structure of large-scale brain activity, his lab explores how the human brain implements attention- and memory-guided actions, context-dependent decisions, and our ability to abstract and generalize rules. His group further investigates sleep as a window to understand spontaneous neural activity in the absence of sensory input or immediate behavioral demands. Their central aim is to bridge the gap between macroscale neural correlates of behavior and microscale circuit properties, ultimately uncovering the neural mechanisms that make us distinctly human. Their integrative approach combines detailed behavioral testing with intracranial and non-invasive neurophysiological recordings to study human cognition with high spatiotemporal resolution. This work includes an integrative approach that fosters cross-disciplinary collaboration to merge human, clinical and animal studies. At the core, his research program address how coordinated neural activity across the wake-sleep cycle enables efficient and flexible cognitive processing.