My research interests are identifying antecedents of brain injury in critically ill infants using multimodal monitoring. We use a battery of physiological measures such as EEG, heart rate from ECG, oxygen saturation, cerebrovascular signals from near-infrared spectroscopy, and blood pressure indwelling arterial line. The commonly used physiological variables include heart rate variability, cerebral pressure autoregulation, power spectral metrics of EEG at the scalp and source levels, functional connectivity identified using EEG sources, and relating the connectivity metrics to neurodevelopmental outcomes. Our clinical cohorts include preterm infants, hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy in term newborns, and congenital heart disease infants.

Our group has successfully demonstrated the association between impairment in cerebral pressure autoregulation and higher incidences of brain injury in critically ill infants. Also, we have developed predictive models using heart rate variability to predict the outcome of term newborns undergoing therapeutic hypothermia for hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy. Before embarking on pediatric physiological signal analysis, I worked on maternal-fetal physiology acquired using magnetobiometry. We have studied the development of the fetal autonomic nervous system and fetal brain function. We have also studied the association between uterine contraction and the nature of labor using maternal myometrial activity acquired using magnetometry.