What are the biological constraints on the amount and/or resolution of information held in working memory?
How does working memory modulate our perception of the world?
How is information encoded and maintained such that it can persist in the presence of distracting stimuli?
LATEST LAB NEWS
RESEARCH
The Sreenivasan Lab is interested in how the brain forms and implements goals. Our primary focus is the neurobiological basis of working memory, which is the process that allows us to actively hold on to information over brief periods. Working memory underlies our ability to communicate, problem solve, and think abstractly. In the lab, we combine neuroimaging and behavioral studies in healthy and patient populations in order to gain insight into how working memory and other elements of goal-directed behavior are implemented in the human brain.

Research areas include: 
How are multiple working memory representations organized in parallel? Working memory likely involves multiple parallel representations distributed across the brain, but it is not clear what the purpose of this organization is. We aim to uncover the joint and unique contributions of parallel working memory representations to behavior as well as understand how they interact.
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How are memories converted into a coherent behavioral response? Working memories are richer than previously imagined. Converting these representations into a simple (e.g., match/non-match) behavioral response is not a trivial feat. We aim to elucidate the processes and brain mechanisms by which rich working memories are converted to point estimates in response space.
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How do top-down signals leverage the spatiotopic organization of the human brain? Topographic maps are found in multiple regions, including parietal and prefrontal control areas. We propose that interregional spatiotopically-specific signals are critical for organizing multiple elements of cognition. We aim to characterize the nature and limitations of these signals and demonstrate their importance for working memory and attention.
PEOPLE
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
Kartik Sreenivasan | Associate Professor of Psychology | Affiliation in Biology
kks4 at nyu dot edu

Kartik is interested in working memory, cognitive control, and the structure of mental representations. Kartik received his bachelor's degree from Yale University, his PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania under the supervision of Dr. Amishi Jha, and did his postdoctoral training at UC Berkeley under the supervision of Dr. Mark D'Esposito. He joined the NYUAD faculty in 2014.
RESEARCHERS
Karima Raafat | Research Assistant & Lab Manager
kar618 at nyu dot edu | @KarimaRaafat

Karima joined the lab in 2021 after completing her B.A. in Psychology at NYU Abu Dhabi. She is currently a research assistant and the lab manager. Her research focuses on examining the link between working memory and action, as well as the mechanisms underlying ensemble bias in visual working memory.
Gayathri Satheesh | Research Assistant
gs2750 at nyu dot edu

Gayathri joined the lab as a research assistant in 2020 after completing her B.S. in Biology at NYU Abu Dhabi. Her research focuses on understanding the component processes that comprise working memory.
Aleksandrina Dimova | Research Assistant
asd496 at nyu dot edu

Aleksandrina joined the lab as a research assistant in September 2024. After completing her  B.A. in Psychology in 2021 at NYUAD, she worked as a research assistant and lab manager in developmental psychology. Her current research focuses on task-optimized artificial neural network models and understanding dynamic coding in working memory.
Teodora Hristovska | Research Assistant
th1925 at nyu dot edu

Teodora first joined the lab as a student in 2019 and later received her B.A. in Psychology in 2021. Her undergraduate thesis focused on investigating the differences in representational formats between visual working memory and mental imagery. Her current research focuses on understanding the bidirectional links between visual working memory and action.
STUDENTS
Ying Zhou | PhD Student
yz5726 at nyu dot edu
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Ying joined NYUAD as a PhD student in 2019 after completing her B.A. and M.A. in Psychology at Zhejiang University, China. She is interested in working memory and attention. Her research focuses on studying the neural mechanism of attention in working memory through fMRI. Ying's PhD is co-supervised by Kartik, Clay Curtis, & Daryl Fougnie (primary supervisor).
Shanshan Li | PhD Student
sl9712 at nyu dot edu
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Shanshan joined the lab as a PhD student in 2022. She completed her B.A. in Applied Psychology at Nantong University and MSc in Research Methods of Psychology at the University of Glasgow. Shanshan's PhD is co-supervised by Kartik & Clay Curtis.
Hannah Chu | PhD Student
wkc267 at nyu dot edu
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Hannah joined the lab as an undergraduate capstone student in 2022. After completing her B.A. in Psychology in 2023, Hannah also completed a one-year fellowship before starting her PhD with the lab in 2024. Hannah's PhD is co-supervised by Kartik & Clay Curtis.
Bruna Barreto | Undergraduate Capstone Student
The effects of acute stress on the stability/flexibility tradeoff in working memory

Jenna Al Taher | Undergraduate Capstone Student
The effects of acute stress on working memory representations
Lina Janajreh | Undergraduate Capstone Student
Components deficits of working memory in ADHD
LAB ALUMNI
Aniol Santo-Anglès, Postdoc (currently a Postdoc fellow | University of Helsinki)
Alia AlShamali, Kawader Research Assistant
Abdujabborkhuja Abdujabborov, Research Assistant
Ainsley Temudo, Research Associate and Lab Manager (currently a PhD student in Cognitive and Motor Neuroscience | University of Utah)
Masih Rahmati, Postdoc (currently a Postdoc | Yale University Department of Psychiatry)
Amber Nomani, Research Assistant (currently a MSc student in Clinical Mental Health Sciences | University College London)
Stergiani Lentzou, Research Assistant (currently a MSc student in Cognitive Neuroscience Research | Donders Institute, Radboud University)
Vahan Babushkin, Research Assistant (currently a PhD student in Engineering | NYUAD)
Kevin DeSimone, Postdoc (currently a Data Scientist | Statespace Labs)
Israr Ul Haq, Research Assistant and Lab Manager (currently a Resident in Neurology | Mercy Health St. Vincent Hospital in Toledo, OH)
Kinza Maxood, Research Assistant (currently a Medical Editor, Science and Regulatory Affairs | Klick Health)
Michael Payton, Research Assistant (currently a PhD student | University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Kübra Kömek Kırlı, Postdoc (currently a Clinical Research Manager | Medtronic)
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Sofie Encheva ('24)
Hannah Chu ('23)
Treedom Zhang ('23)
Lin Ye ('22)
Liza Borodynia ('22)
Aleksandrina Dimova ('21)
Teodora Hristovska ('21)
Nicole Dobreva ('20)
Supriya Kamath ('19)
Mariam AlHarmoodi ('19)
Nela Noll ('19)
Karolis Degutis ('18)
Zsofia Sveiczer ('18)
Dóra Pálfi ('16)
Annamaria Balogh ('15)
PUBLICATIONS
  • *authors contributed equally; #Kartik is a corresponding author; §trainee supervised by Kartik
    2024‍
    Pagnotta M, §Santo-Anglès A, §Temudo A, Barbosa J, D’Esposito M, Compte A, and Sreenivasan KK#. (preprint) Alpha phase-coding supports feature binding in working memory. BioRxiv. link
    §Santo-Anglès A, §Temudo A, §Babushkin V, and Sreenivasan KK#(2024). Effective connectivity of working memory performance: a DCM study of MEG data. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 18. link
    2023‍
    Jabar S, Sreenivasan KK, §Lentzou S, Kanabar A, Brady TF, and Fougnie D (2023). Probabilistic and rich individual working memories revealed by a betting game. Scientific Reports, 13, 20912. link
    §Rahmati M, Curtis CC, and Sreenivasan KK# (2023). Mnemonic representations in human lateral geniculate nucleus. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 17, 1094226. link
    2022‍
    • §Zhou Y, Curtis CC, Sreenivasan KK#, and Fougnie D* (2022). Common neural mechanisms control attention and working memory. Journal of Neuroscience. link
  • 2021‍
    • Barbosa J, §Babushkin V, §Temudo A, Sreenivasan KK, and Compte A (2021). Across-area synchronization supports feature integration in working memory. link

      Hallenbeck GE, Sprague TC, §Rahmati M, Sreenivasan KK, and Curtis CE (2021). Working memory representations in visual cortex mediate distraction effects. Nature Communications, 12(1), 1-18. link
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      Lorenc ES* and Sreenivasan KK#* (2021). Reframing the debate: The distributed systems view of working memory. Visual Cognition, 1-9. link
  • 2020‍
    • §Rahmati M, §DeSimone K, Curtis CC, and Sreenivasan KK# (2020). Spatially-specific working memory activity in the human superior colliculus. Journal of Neuroscience, 40(49), 9487-9495. link
  • 2019
    • Sreenivasan KK# and D’Esposito M (2019). The what, where and how of delay activity. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 20, 466-481. link
  • 2018
    • Donaldson KR, Roach BJ, Ford JM, Lai K, Sreenivasan KK, and Mathalon DH (2018). Effects of conflict and strategic processing on neural responses to errors in schizophrenia. Biological Psychology, 140, 9-18. link
    • Lorenc ES, Sreenivasan KK, Nee DE, Vandenbroucke ARE, and D’Esposito M (2018). Flexible coding of visual working memory representations during distraction. Journal of Neuroscience, 38(23), 5267-5276 link
  • 2015
    • Sneve MH, Sreenivasan KK, Endestad T, and Magnussen S (2015). Short-term retention of visual information: Evidence in support of feature-based attention as an underlying mechanism. Neuropsychologia, 66, 1-9. link
  • 2014‍
    • Sreenivasan KK#, Curtis CE, and D’Esposito M (2014). Revisiting the role of persistent neural activity during working memory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18(2), 82-89. link
    • Sreenivasan KK, Gratton C, Vytlacil J, and D’Esposito M (2014). Evidence for working memory storage operations in perceptual cortex. Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience, 14(1), 117-128. link
    • Cohen JR*, Sreenivasan KK*, and D’Esposito M (2014). Correspondence between stimulus encoding- and maintenance-related neural processes underlies successful working memory. Cerebral Cortex, 24(3), 593-599. link
    • Sreenivasan KK, Vytlacil J, and D’Esposito M. (2014). Distributed and dynamic coding of working memory stimulus representations in extrastriate cortex. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 26(5), 1141-1153. link
  • 2013 and earlier
    • Gratton C, Sreenivasan KK, Silver MA, and D’Esposito M (2013). Attention selectively modifies the representation of individual faces in the human brain. Journal of Neuroscience, 33(16), 6979-6989. link
    • Sreenivasan KK, Sambhara D, and Jha AP (2011). Working memory templates are maintained in feature-specific perceptual code. Journal of Neurophysiology, 106(1), 115-121. link
    • Sreenivasan KK, Goldstein JM, §Lustig AG, §Rivas LR, and Jha AP (2009). Attention to faces modulates early face processing during low but not high face discriminability. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 71(4), 837-846. link
    • Sreenivasan KK, Katz J, and Jha AP (2007). Temporal characteristics of top-down modulations during working memory maintenance: An event-related potential study of the N170 component. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19(11), 1836-1844. link
    • Sreenivasan KK and Jha AP (2007). Selective attention supports working memory maintenance by modulating perceptual processing of distractors. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19(1), 32-41. link
CONTACT
AVAILABLE POSITIONS
Undergraduate Volunteers. If you're a student at NYU or NYUAD who is passionate about research, there may be opportunities for you to get hands-on research experience by helping with one of our lab projects. If you are interested, please contact Kartik directly.

GENERAL QUERIES
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NYUAD Sreenivasan Lab ⓒ 2021
Computational Research Building (A2), Saadiyat Island
Abu Dhabi, UAE