Akhil Edadan

Profile Update 28.02.2019

Current activities:

There are 4 projects as a part of my PhD. 1) Comparison of pRF properties between natural and phase scrambled natural images. Preliminary results from 6 subjects show an increase in pRF size for phase scrambled natural images compared to original natural images. 2) Comparison of pRF properties between stimuli with different spatial frequencies. I’ve finished the stimulus design and I’m in the process of data collection. 3) A stimulus referred forward model to predict MEG responses from pRF model. Results show that our forward model can predict up to 60 % of the variance in the measured MEG signal from the posterior sensors. We are in the process of writing the manuscript for the project. 4) Change blindness: Is V1 change blind. Results using synthetic images as stimulus shows that we can identify the changes during a change blindness paradigm from V1 even when subjects fail to notice them.

Accomplishments:

I’ve presented projects 3 and 4 at international conferences (SFN and VSS). I’m currently in the process of writing the manuscript on project 3.

Future plans:

I would like to continue using the knowledge that I have acquired during the years of my PhD as part of NGV and combine it with my previous background as a biomedical engineer. To this extent, I’m looking for postdoc positions that would involve developing tools for diagnosis, treatment or designing rehabilitation aids for people suffering from visual/neurological disorder. I would also be open for a position in a company that uses data analysis techniques for healthcare products.

My NextGenVis experience:

My NGV journey has been amazing, filled with a lot of learning and fun. It has given me an opportunity to meet people from different parts of the world and different educational backgrounds who share the same goal as me. I believe that this is quite useful in the journey of every PhD student. An exposure to working in a company and medical center has helped me as a PhD student working in a university to look at my projects from a broader perspective. I have also had the privilege of meeting professors who are higher up in the career and learn from them. I’ve also learnt a lot from the workshops offered during NGV meetings.

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Education

M.Sc. Bioengineering FT, University College Dublin, Ireland               Sep 2014-Aug 2015

Bachelor of technology, Biomedical Engineering,                                    Jul 2010- Jul 2014

VIT University, India

Work Experience

Volunteer, National Rehabilitation Hospital, Ireland

Biomedical engineering intern, Baby Memorial Hospital Ltd., Calicut, India

Current project

Advanced biologically inspired models to study the stability and plasticity of visual cortex

Project aims to advance the Population Receptive Field models through developing sophisticated modeling of the internal computation taking place in the neuronal populations in order precisely quantify the changes taking place in the visual cortex. Focus will be on analyzing the changes in the feature selectivity (such as contrast energy, motion energy) of neuronal population.

Research Interests     Computational modeling, Vision, Neuroimaging

Thesis

Classification of EEG signals corresponding to lapsing attention due to mind wandering,

University College Dublin (Supervisor: Dr. Simon Kelly) – 2015