معرفی
Keith Purpura is an Associate Professor of Neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medicine's Brain and Mind Research Institute. He has maintained a continuous academic appointment since 1993, progressing from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor in 2000. His research spans two primary areas of neuroscience: the role of eye movements in visual cortical processing and the therapeutic application of thalamic deep brain stimulation for cognitive disorders.
Dr. Purpura received his Ph.D. from The Rockefeller University in 1988 under Drs. Robert Shapley and Ehud Kaplan, followed by post-doctoral work with Dr. Jonathan Victor at Cornell University Medical College and a visiting scientist position at the NIH's National Eye Institute (1991-1993). His undergraduate studies spanned Mannes College of Music, New York University, and Columbia College.
His laboratory investigates how eye movements influence neural activity patterns across the visual cortical hierarchy, hypothesizing that these movements generate and access communication channels across cortical areas. Concurrently, in collaboration with Dr. Jonathan Baker, he develops deep brain stimulation techniques targeting the central thalamus to treat disorders of consciousness following traumatic brain injury, which affects over 2 million Americans annually.
Analysis of his publication record reveals consistent focus on neural network dynamics, visual processing mechanisms, and translational applications of brain stimulation. His work bridges computational neuroscience with clinical applications, particularly in understanding how cortical networks process visual information and how brain stimulation can restore cognitive function.
- Searle Award (Post-doctoral support)
- Charles H. Revson Foundation (Post-doctoral support)
- McDonnel-Pew Research Program in Cognitive Neuroscience Award
- Visiting Scientist, National Eye Institute, NIH: 1991-1993
- NIH NINDS-K04 Career Development Award
- 17 summers of research at Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole
Dr. Purpura currently serves as Principal Investigator on an NIH National Eye Institute grant (2022-2026) studying eye movements in visual processing networks and as Co-Principal Investigator on an NINDS grant (2020-2025) for central thalamic deep brain stimulation. His laboratory includes collaborators Jonathan L. Baker and Jae-Wook Ryou, and he established both the alert primate physiology laboratory and visual neurophysiology laboratory at Weill Cornell.
