Igor Kagan

Dr. Igor Kagan is a Group Leader at the Decision and Awareness Group within the German Primate Center in Göttingen, Germany, affiliated with the University of Göttingen. His research focuses on neurophysiological and imaging studies of decision-making, cognitive functions, and visuomotor processes in primates, with emphasis on interhemispheric interactions and cross-species comparisons between humans and monkeys.

Education: PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School (2003), B.Sc. in Biology from Tel Aviv University (1996), and prior studies in Biophysics at St. Petersburg State Technical University (Russia). His postdoctoral training included work at Caltech’s Andersen Lab (2003–2010).

Research Interests: Neurophysiology of decision-making circuits, functional imaging of neural networks, neural basis of fMRI signals, and active vision mechanisms in the primary visual cortex. His work integrates pharmacological inactivation, behavioral paradigms, and functional imaging to study goal-directed behaviors.

Publications Highlight Contributions to understanding pulvinar and parietal cortex roles in spatial decisions, neural reorganization after inactivation, and species differences in visual processing. His articles explore mechanisms underlying saccade choices, reward-driven motor planning, and cortical plasticity.

No scientific awards explicitly mentioned. Active in mentoring through his research group and affiliated with GGNB’s Systems Neuroscience and Theoretical Neuroscience programs.