scash

CONGRATULATIONS to Prof. Sydney S. Cash, M.D., Ph.D., for becoming the New Chief for the Division of Epilepsy for Mass General Brigham Neurology!!!!

We celebrated the heard the fantastic news that Dr. Cash will be taking the lead of the world-class Division of Epilepsy at Massachusetts General Hospital. We all look forward to his leadership in moving forward such a fantastic, groundbreaking division!!!

Photos are of the celebratory party in the lab celebrating Prof. Cash taking on this role moving forward!

Congratulations to the coauthors on the publication “Natural language processing models reveal neural dynamics of human conversation” in Nature Communications!!!!! This work involved examining neural activity from intracranial leads to look at what goes on in the brain while patient participants carry on a natural conversation with one of our lab members. Lead by Jing Cai and started by Alex Hadjinicolaou and Sydney Cash, the neural signal was then correlated with the embeddings of a large language model (like ChatGPT) which was also used to encode the conversation. The work revealed widespread language-correlated brain activity across participants from intracranial stereo EEG data with robust correlations of activity in different spectral bands.

Cai, J., Hadjinicolaou, A.E., Paulk, A.C. et al. Natural language processing models reveal neural dynamics of human conversation. Nat Commun 16, 3376 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-58620-w

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-58620-w

Congratulations to Cash lab members and a massive team both at MGH and across institutions on the publication “DREDge: robust motion correction for high-density extracellular recordings across species” in Nature Methods!! We worked with Charlie Windolf, Erdem Varol, and Han Yu at Columbia and NYU who gathered a massive collaborative consortium of labs to develop and test out a new algorithm for correcting for motion in high resolution recordings across species from mice to NHPs to humans! A lot of this work was inspired by the motion artifact from brain movements in human brain recordings due to breathing and heartrate changes and involves using the local field potential to correct for the motion artifact to allow for improved spike sorting and motion-corrected local field potential. However, DREDGE is also great for correcting for motion using action potentials!

Windolf, C., Yu, H., Paulk, A.C. et al. DREDge: robust motion correction for high-density extracellular recordings across species. Nat Methods (2025).

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-025-02614-5

Github: https://github.com/evarol/dredge

And also included in SpikeInterface: https://spikeinterface.readthedocs.io/en/stable/

Congratulations to Peter Hadar, MD, who received the 2025 American Academy of Neurology/American Epilepsy Society/American Brain Foundation Susan S. Spencer, MD Clinical Research Training Scholarship in Epilepsy! He will be supported for 2 years to investigate using neurostimulation and neuroimaging to improve epilepsy management.

Congratulations to Dr. Rina Zelmann, PhD, from the Center for Neurotechnology and NeuroRecovery (CNTR), on an awarded NIH Katz R01 grant!!!

The thalamus plays a key role in supporting sleep and is also a target of therapeutic stimulation. This project investigates when, where, and how electrical stimulation delivered to the thalamus in humans elicits or disrupts sleep oscillations and whether stimulation affects sleep integrity. This new direction for research is essential for understanding current therapies and moving toward new therapies for a wide range of neurological and neuropsychological disorders.

Congratulations to Angelique Paulk, Ph.D., the Center for Neurotechnology and NeuroRecovery (CNTR), and team on an awarded NIH R01 grant!!! The grant will be on ‘Neural activity signatures of tumor infiltration in the human brain’ under the Research Opportunities for New and “At-Risk” Investigators to Promote Workforce Diversity RFA (PAR-22-181). The proposed work is in collaboration with Shadi Dayeh and the IEBL lab (https://iebl.ucsd.edu/) at University of California San Diego, Drs. Gavin Dunn, Daniel Cahill, and Ziv Williams in the Department of Neurosurgery, MGH, and Drs. Isabel Arrillaga-Romany and Sydney Cash in the Department of Neurology, MGH. The work will involve using cutting edge neurotechnologies such as Neuropixels and thin film electrodes to record the electrical activity of cells in, around, and far from tumor in vivo in the human brain to supplement diagnostic imaging tools to provide a high-resolution dynamic physiological map tumor infiltration in the intact brain.

Congratulations to Danny Huang and coauthors across institutions for a new paper on “Theta-burst direct electrical stimulation remodels human brain networks” in Nature Communications! In a collaboration between the Keller lab at Stanford and the Cash lab at MGH with coauthors, we characterize the effects of theta burst direct electrical stimulation on intracranial neural recordings in the human brain, showing possible signs of plasticity! These results could be predicted by underlying brain network connectivity and stimulation location, with implications for how stimulation therapies could modulate brain activity long-term.

Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51443-1

X (Twitter) thread explaining the paper: https://x.com/YuhaoHuangMD/status/1824089418803900538

Huang Y, Zelmann R, Hadar P, Dezha-Peralta J, Richardson RM, Williams ZM, Cash SS, Keller CJ, Paulk AC. Theta-burst direct electrical stimulation remodels human brain networks. Nat Commun. 2024 Aug 14;15(1):6982. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-51443-1. PMID: 39143083; PMCID: PMC11324911.

Keller lab at Stanford:

https://precisionneuro.stanford.edu/

Congratulations to Pierre Bourdillon, Cash lab members, and coauthors for their paper on “Differential cortical layer engagement during seizure initiation and spread in humans” in Nature Communications!!! Using past data gathered using the thumbtack laminar arrays of micro-electrodes which has 150 micron spacing between individual contacts which can span cortical layers in the human brain, Bourdillon and coauthors studied seizure activity across cortical layers in patient participants with intractable epilepsy intracranially monitored to identify the seizure onset zone. Ictal (or seizure) activity appeared to come from deeper cortical layers in the seizure onset zone while the same activity showed up in more superficial cortical layers in the seizure propagation zone. This could demonstrate fundamental features of how seizures are generated by underlying microcircuits, with possible clinical diagnostic applications for identifying epileptogenic tissue.
Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48746-8
Bourdillon P, Ren L, Halgren M, Paulk AC, Salami P, Ulbert I, Fabó D, King JR, Sjoberg KM, Eskandar EN, Madsen JR, Halgren E, Cash SS. Differential cortical layer engagement during seizure initiation and spread in humans. Nat Commun. 2024 Jun 17;15(1):5153. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-48746-8. PMID: 38886376; PMCID: PMC11183216.

Thank you to Dan Soper, Jessica Chang, and Domokos Meszéna for your years of making the science work!!!!! Welcome to Chibuikem Iheagwaram and Laurent Lochard!!!!!

There’s been lots of changes to the Cash lab recently! We thank Dan Soper and Jessica Chang for being such excellent clinical research technicians and all-around great people to work with! Dan in particular has been with the Cash lab for 6 years and has been the glue who has kept the science and the work together while making it all engaging and fun.

Domokos Meszéna joined us two years ago and lent his incredible expertise and enthusiasm for neuroscience and single cell activity and detection to make Neuropixels recordings work. Thank you, Domi, for all your hard work!

We’re excited to welcome Chibuikem Iheagwaram and Laurent Lochard who are joining the Cash lab as clinical research technicians!

A massive CONGRATULATIONS to Prof. Sydney S. Cash for becoming the Division Chief for the Clinical Neurophysiology Division at Massachusetts General Hospital!!!!

In a celebration of Prof. Andy Cole’s service and efforts to grow the epilepsy monitoring unit into a Clinical Neurophysiology Division over many years, we also heard the fantastic news that Dr. Cash will be taking the lead of the world-class Clinical Neurophysiology Division at Massachusetts General Hospital. We all look forward to his leadership and creativity in moving forward such a fantastic, groundbreaking division!!!

Photos are of Prof. Merit Cudkowicz (Chief, Neurology Department), Assistant Prof. Alice Lam, Associate Prof. Marcello Matiello, and Prof. Andy Cole along with Prof. Sydney Cash talking about both the inspiring, excellent, and high quality leadership and mentorship that Prof. Andy Cole displayed as Division Chief and the excitement of Prof. Cash taking on this role moving forward!

We also got to get some photos of members of the Department of Neurology Clinical Neurophysiology Division and Cash lab members who got to attend!