Faculty
Dean F. Salisbury, PhD
Professor of Psychiatry
salisburyd@upmc.edu
Dr. Salisbury, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, is the Director of the Clinical Neurophysiology Research Laboratory. He earned his doctorate degree in Biological Psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and completed a clinical research training fellowship focusing in Neuropsychiatry at the Harvard Medical School. Dr. Salisbury spent the last 20 years at McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School studying the neurophysiology of psychosis.
Dr. Salisbury’s research interests focus on schizophrenia pathophysiology and human electrophysiology. He utilizes electrophysiology and multimodal brain imaging to examine thought disturbance (cognitive-level) and basic auditory processing abnormalities (sensory-level) in psychosis, and specializes in event-related potential recordings in humans. Dr. Salisbury has also collaborated extensively with colleagues using magnetic resonance imaging and functional magnetic resonance imaging methods on a number of research projects.
The goal of Dr. Salisbury’s work is to further understand the neurophysiology of psychosis. Brain activity measures span simple sensory and perceptual processes to complex higher-order cognition. Dysfunction in local circuit activity, reflected in sensory processing deficits, and in long-range distributed cortical processing, reflected in deficits in the interplay between semantic memory neural storage networks and working memory systems that allow adaptive and flexible human behavior in the face of unique current situations, are the main areas of inquiry by which Dr. Salisbury and his team try to detect the underlying brain abnormalities giving rise to psychosis. Understanding of the basic dysfunctions, in turn, will lead to earlier identification, better interventions, and improved outcome in schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders.
Brian Coffman, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
coffmanb@upmc.edu
Dr. Brian Coffman is a research instructor in the Clinical Neurophysiology Research Lab (CNRL). He earned his BS, MS, and Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of New Mexico, where his primary mentor was Dr. Vincent P. Clark. Dr. Coffman has been involved with neuroimaging and cognitive neuroscience research since 2007, when joined the Mind Research Network in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Dr. Coffman’s current research interests include cognitive neuroscience, clinical neuroimaging, brain stimulation, and neuroinformatics. In particular, he has pursued interests in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), magnetoencephalography (MEG), transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), and mathematical/computational problems associated with neuroimaging data analysis. Dr. Coffman has published basic science research as well as research in various clinical populations, and he has applied multimodal neuroimaging data to complex problems in clinical diagnosis and treatment. Dr. Coffman’s current research examines sensory and perceptual electrophysiological processes in Schizophrenia patients in an effort to further understand the neurophysiology of psychosis, and aid in earlier diagnosis and better treatment interventions for this unfortunate population.
Alfredo Sklar, MD-PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
sklaral@upmc.edu
Dr. Alfredo Sklar is an Assistant Professor in the Psychiatry Department at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He earned his BA in Psychology from Haverford College and his medical and graduate degrees in the combined MD-PhD program at the University of Florida. Dr. Sklar joined the Clinical Neurophysiology Research Laboratory during his psychiatry residency training at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Dr. Sklar’s research focuses on characterizing disruptions of sensory-perceptual systems in psychosis and their contributions to symptoms and functional decline during early illness stages. He is the PI on a NIMH K23 award utilizing structural brain imaging and neurophysiology to examine perceptual modulation in the visual system in first-episode psychosis. Dr. Sklar is also a practicing psychiatrist, treating patients in the Comprehensive Recovery Services clinic, an outpatient clinic affiliated with Western Psychiatric Hospital focused on the care of individuals with severe mental illness (SMI). His goal is to apply the knowledge gained in the laboratory to the improved identification and treatment of psychotic symptoms in patient populations.
Fran Lopez-Caballero, PhD
Research Instructor in Psychiatry
lopezcaballerofj@upmc.edu
Dr. Fran Lopez-Caballero is a postdoctoral associate in the Clinical Neurophysiology Research Laboratory (CNRL). He obtained his PhD degree in the BrainLab-Cognitive Neuroscience Research Group at the University of Barcelona, Spain, with Dr. Carles Escera as his mentor. There, he conducted research involving auditory-evoked potentials such as the Frequency-Following response, and different neuroscience techniques including Electroencephalography (EEG) and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS).
Currently, Dr Lopez-Caballero is involved in several projects aiming to determine how auditory deviance detection, attention and subcortical speech encoding are affected near psychosis onset. To do so, he analyzes auditory-evoked responses recorded with EEG and Magnetoencephalography, as well as combines both techniques with Magnetic Resonance Imaging to find the sources of these responses within the brain.
Research Specialists
Dylan Seebold, BS
Research Specialist
seeboldd@upmc.edu
Dylan received a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology with a minor in Neuroscience from Penn State. After graduating, he worked as a research technician in a cell biology lab studying the regeneration of neurons after injury. Dylan joined the Clinical Neurophysiology Research Lab in the beginning of 2019 because he wanted to broaden his research in neuroscience, as well as combine it with his interest in medicine. He has used his skills in EEG, MEG, MRI and other methodologies to contribute to the lab’s research. He plans to apply and enroll into a PsyD program and specialize in neuropsychology.
Jenay Kocsis, BA
Research Specialist
kocsisj@upmc.edu
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Jenay received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Capital University in Columbus, OH. After graduating, she worked as a research assistant tasked with recruiting for a study on opioid use and child maltreatment. She joined the Clinical Neurophysiology Research Lab in 2022 to continue working with people experiencing life with mental health diagnoses and to gain technical experience in neuropsychology. She plans to pursue a PsyD in clinical psychology.
Undergraduates
Annika Esseku
Undergraduate Research Assistant
I’m a sophomore majoring in Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh. I’m from Spring, Texas. I like to draw and read. In high-school, psychology was the subject that got me interested in the brain. I wanted to learn how mental illnesses came about and how they affected the brain. However there didn’t seem to be much information about how mental illness affects neurological structures or functions, and this is what initially got me interested in neuroscience. In the lab, I work with Dr. Alfredo Sklar to examine the EAGBR signal in patients after their first psychotic episode. I use Brainstorm to combine MEG and MRI data in order to visualize where the signal is located and how it responds to stimulus intensity. In the future, I hope to work in the field of neurology as a neurologist or researcher.