Dr. Brian Barton received his B.S. in Psychology at the University of Oregon, where he studied visual attention and working memory with Edward Awh, Ph.D., and Edward Vogel, Ph.D. Dr. Barton then earned his Ph.D. in Psychology with a Concentration in Cognitive Neuroscience in 2013 at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), where he expanded his research into functional MRI measurements of visual cortex organization and plasticity with Alyssa A. Brewer, M.D., Ph.D. He continued on at UCI as a post-doctoral scholar for three years with Drs. Brewer, Greg Hickok, Ph.D., and Kourosh Saberi, Ph.D., applying his vision work to measurements of the organization of human auditory cortex. Dr. Barton’s current research focuses on the organization, function, and plasticity of sensory field maps in human visual and auditory cortex.

It is his goal to investigate sensory systems in the human brain according to the following principles:

FIRST: STRUCTURE INFORMS FUNCTION, AND BY EXTENSION, COMMON STRUCTURE INFORMS COMMON FUNCTION. If two areas of the brain respond to carefully-crafted stimuli in very similar ways, it is highly likely that those two areas are involved in very similar types of processing.

SECOND: SENSORY SYSTEMS SHOULD NOT BE STUDIED IN ISOLATION. While it is understandable that it requires a great deal of expertise to study the brain underpinnings of any given sense, there are valuable insights to be gleaned about any given sense from other senses.