Mukesh Dhamala, PhD

Mukesh Dhamala earned his PhD in Physics from the University of Kansas and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Tech, Emory University, and the Center for Complex Systems & Brain Sciences at Florida Atlantic University before joining Georgia State University, where he now leads the NeuroPhysics & Systems Neuroscience Laboratory. His work bridges physics, neuroscience, and computation to study how dynamic brain networks support cognition and how their disruption drives neurological disorders.

Professional Preparation

• PhD in Physics, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas (2000).
• Postdoctoral Fellow, Georgia Tech School of Physics and Emory School of Medicine, Atlanta (2000–2002).
• Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Complex Systems & Brain Sciences, FAU, Florida (2002–2004).
• Research Assistant Scientist, Biomedical Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville (2004–2007).

My research program seeks to understand the neural mechanisms of cognition, decision-making, brain plasticity, and brain dysfunction through multimodal neuroimaging, electrophysiology, computational neuroscience, and dynamical-systems approaches. Our laboratory develops and applies advanced methods to characterize large-scale brain-network dynamics across spatial and temporal scales using EEG, fMRI, diffusion MRI, intracranial recordings, and computational modeling. A central goal is to identify mechanistic and clinically meaningful markers of cognitive enhancement and maladaptive neural dynamics in neurological and psychiatric disorders.

Over the past two decades, my work has focused on directed functional connectivity, neural oscillations, multimodal brain imaging, and computational modeling. Our laboratory pioneered nonparametric Granger-causality methods for estimating directed information flow and has applied these tools to perceptual decision-making, cognitive control, epilepsy, depression, neurodegeneration, and experience-dependent plasticity associated with action video game play.