Dr. Michael Peer
- Epstein Lab
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Russell A. Epstein Lab website
Dr. Peer earned his PhD in Neurobiology at Hebrew University. While working on his doctorate, he served as a teaching assistant at Hebrew University’s Faculty of Medicine, and later as a lecturer at the Hadassah Nursing School.
Dr. Peer’s research uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and advanced data analysis techniques to investigate the neural systems that underlie spatial navigation and cognition in humans. During our daily lives, we structure and organize knowledge about the world around us, forming maps and connections between real world elements as well as between abstract concepts and ideas. At the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Peer will investigate, firstly, how the brain represents large-scale space, and secondly, how it represents non-spatial knowledge as cognitive maps. His research could lead to a better understanding of how people perceive, behave, and navigate in large-scale space, and why some people are good navigators in such environments while others struggle. Understanding disorientation, a debilitating part of many neurological and psychiatric disorders, could in turn enable the development of novel diagnostic tools for these disorders, as well as navigational aids and cognitive training regimes.