Research Assistant                              

1997-2000 B.Sc (Honours in Physics)
Presidency College, Calcutta University, Calcutta, India

2000-2002 M.Sc (Physics, Specialization: Nonlinear Dynamics)
University of Pune, Pune, India (Project Title: Equivalence of Gravitational red-shift, Cosmological red-shift and Doppler shift)
Project Advisor: Dr. J.V Narlikar, Special paper Advisor: Dr. A.D. Gangal

2002-2007 PhD (Complex Systems & Brain Sciences)
Center for Complex Systems & Brain Sciences, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, USA
Thesis Title: Neural information processing underlying rhythmic bimanual coordination: Theory, methods and experiment
Advisor: Dr. Viktor. K Jirsa

Research Interests

My long term interests are to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying coordinated  movements in the presence or absence of sensory cues. Currently, I investigate how different sensory representations get transformed into action selection? And, even in the absence of such sensory cues how does one perform coordinated bimanual movements? One key feature of coordination is its representation across multiple scales of organization, effectors, muscles,  spinal chord, cortex. Hence, the  underlying complexity that are involved in each of these levels are often downplayed by the effortless execution of the movement. In the microscopic circuit level, local field potential and spiking neuron activity in the cortex represent some of the computations that might facilitate the transformations of a sensory signal to reach goals. In the macroscopic level, spatiotemporal patterns formed in brain images obtained from EEG, MEG and fMRI can encode some features of the coordination under the constraints of spatial and temporal resolution. My research in the future will try to address 1) how can we identify the key events that process information during coordinated movements from different kinds of electrophysiological recordings in the cortex in a unified framework? 2) How do the correlation of such events with individual effector  behavior and muscular activity address some of the fundamental mechanisms underlying coordination? 3) With knowledge of  coordination mechanisms can we predict action selection in real time?

Publications

Journals

Banerjee, A &  Jirsa, V.K. (2007): How do neural connectivity and time delays influence bimanual coordination?  Biological Cybernetics 96 (2) 265-278. DOI : 10.1007/s00422-006-0114-4 .

Banerjee, A, Tognoli, E., Assisi, C., Kelso, J. A. S., & Jirsa, V.K. (2008): Mode-level cognitive subtraction (MLCS) quantifies spatiotemporal reorganization in large-scale brain topographies. NeuroImage 15;42(2):663-74 doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2008.04.260

Banerjee, A., Tognoli, E., Kelso, J. A. S., & Jirsa, V.K.: Spatiotemporal  (re)organization  of sensorimotor cortical networks correlate with bimanual phase transitions. (In preparation)

Conference Abstract
Banerjee. A &  Jirsa, V.K.:  A dynamic framework of neuronal cross-talk controlling bimanual coordination. (Journal of Sports and Exercise Psychology 27: S35-S36 suppl. S, June 2005)

Skills

Gained expertise in working with human subjects, in particular hands on experience with EEG & surface EMG data collection and subsequent processing. Trained to construct hypothesis driven experimental paradigms.  Familiar with signal processing techniques like PCA, ICA, etc as well as multivariate time series analysis. Gained experience in spectral analysis of EEG data: steady-state, induced and evoked.

Programming knowledge includes MATLAB, MATHEMATICA and FORTRAN. Adept in visualization and graphics software like Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and data acquisition/ analysis software like EEGLAB and NEUROSCAN.

Familiar with several numerical techniques to solve ordinary and partial differential equations as well as analytic techniques to solve delay differential equations and other higher dimensional nonlinear dynamical systems. Adept with neuronal models like FitzHugh-Nagumo, Hodgkin Huxley and continuous neural field equations.

Current Research Projects

We seek to develop a computational framework to analyze spatiotemporal EEG or MEG data in the context of large-scale brain dynamics involving various coupled sub-networks. The primary idea is that the experimental control conditions are chosen such that the identification of the spatiotemporal characteristics of individual sub-networks becomes possible. During a more complex task, these sub-networks will interact through temporal modulation of the existing components or recruitment of additional networks. Our approach allows us to disambiguate the contributions of temporal modulation and recruitment of additional networks.

Phase transitions of emergent spatiotemporal temporal patterns have been observed in the dynamics of effectors (fingers) associated with rhythmic bimanual coordination. Neural control of the effectors involves a crosstalk between various functional elements mediated via the underlying connectivity. In the current project we will develop a theoretical framework to understand the laws of coordination dynamics between the functional elements at the neural level for stable and unstable patterns of behavior. We perform EEG studies and search for the neural signatures of unimanual and bimanual coordination. The overarching goal of this project is to obtain theoretical constraints which identify candidate connection topologies and neural activation patterns, thereby capturing a lower dimensional dynamics of brain patterns which can be quantified and to seek first experimental evidence. This work is being done in collaboration with The Human Brain & Behavior Laboratory.

For more information:
http://tng.ccs.fau.edu/projects

http://www.ccs.fau.edu/section_links/HBBLv2/Research/bimanual.html

See CV