Peter M. Kaskan

Peter M. Kaskan, Ph.D., is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. His research focuses on neural circuits underlying affective stimuli processing, emotion, and decision-making, with a particular emphasis on the amygdala's role in emotional experiences. He utilizes intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring during deep brain stimulation and intracranial recordings (iEEG) in human patients. Dr. Kaskan joined Einstein in 2020 as faculty in Neurological Surgery and holds a secondary appointment in Neuroscience since 2023. He collaborates with institutions like the University of Rochester and Weill-Cornell Medicine.

His research interests include understanding how the brain represents behaviorally relevant stimuli and how this influences actions and emotions. He investigates amygdala connectivity with cortical regions like the anterior cingulate (ACC), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). His work bridges basic neuroscience with clinical applications, aiming to develop evidence-based interventions for emotional and mental health conditions.

Dr. Kaskan's publications span studies on primate visual systems, neural coding of learned vs. innate stimuli, and neurophysiological methods in human patients. He received a NARSAD Young Investigator Grant in 2014. His current projects involve studying amygdala and ACC circuits using clinical electrodes to record and manipulate neural activity during behavioral tasks.