Sigurd Lerkerød Alnes

Email:
alnes@berkeley.edu

Position:
Postdoctoral Fellow

I am a postdoc in the Knight Lab at UC Berkeley. Working with Bob, my primary research focus is the neural mechanisms that facilitates successful interaction and communication between individuals, which I investigate using intracranial EEG recordings.

Before joining the Knight Lab, I completed my Ph.D. in the lab of Athina Tzovara at the University of Bern, Switzerland, where I investigated auditory processing across levels of consciousness.

Selected Publications:

Alnes, S. L., Aellen, F. M., Rusterholz, T., Pelentritou, A., Hänggi, M., Rossetti, A. O., Zubler, F., Lucia, M. D., & Tzovara, A. (2025). Temporal dynamics of neural synchrony and complexity of auditory EEG responses in post-hypoxic ischemic coma. Resuscitation, 208, 110531. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resuscitation.2025.110531

Alnes, S. L., Bächlin, L. Z. M., Schindler, K., & Tzovara, A. (2023). Neural complexity and the spectral slope characterise auditory processing in wakefulness and sleep. European Journal of Neuroscience, 59 (5). https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.16203

Cusinato, R.*, Alnes, S. L.*, van Maren, E., Boccalaro, I., Ledergerber, D., Adamantidis, A., Imbach, L. L., Schindler, K., Baud, M. O., & Tzovara, A. [* equal contribution] (2023). Intrinsic neural timescales in the temporal lobe support an auditory processing hierarchy. The Journal of Neuroscience, JN-RM-1941-22. https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.1941-22.2023

Alnes, S. L., Lucia, M. D., Rossetti, A. O., & Tzovara, A. (2021). Complementary roles of neural synchrony and complexity for indexing consciousness and chances of surviving in acute coma. NeuroImage, 245, 118638. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118638

Mattia F. Pagnotta

Mattia F. Pagnotta, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral scholar in the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at UC Berkeley. Mattia works with Bob Knight investigating the neural dynamics underlying cognitive control in the human brain. His long-term research goal is to uncover the neural architecture of distributed cognitive networks that allow us to flexibly achieve different types of cognition and behavior.

Before joining the Knight Lab, Mattia completed postdoctoral training with Mark D'Esposito (2021–2024) at UC Berkeley, with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation (Early Postdoc.Mobility and Postdoc.Mobility fellowships). Before his time at UC Berkeley, Mattia obtained a B.Sc. in Clinical Engineering (2012) and a M.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering (2015) from Sapienza University of Rome (Italy), and a Ph.D. in Psychology (2020) from the University of Fribourg (Switzerland), completing the doctoral training of the Lemanic Neuroscience Doctoral School (Universities of Geneva and Lausanne).

Further details about Mattia and his work can be found at his personal website:

https://sites.google.com/view/mattiapagnotta/

email: pagnotta@berkeley.edu

Position: Postdoctoral fellow

Selected Publications:

Pagnotta, M. F., Santo-Angles, A., Temudo, A., Barbosa, J., Compte, A., D'Esposito, M., & Sreenivasan, K. K. (2024). Alpha phase-coding supports feature binding during working memory maintenance. bioRxiv, 2024-03. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.21.576561v3

Pagnotta, M. F., Riddle, J., & D'Esposito, M. (2024). Multimodal neuroimaging of hierarchical cognitive control. Biological Psychology, 108896. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2024.108896

Pagnotta, M. F., Riddle, J., & D'Esposito, M. (2024). Multiplexed Levels of Cognitive Control through Delta and Theta Neural Oscillations. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 36(5), 916-935. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_02124 

Riddle, J., Scimeca, J., Pagnotta, M. F., Inglis, B., Sheltraw, D., Muse-Fisher, C., & D'Esposito, M. (2022). A guide for concurrent TMS-fMRI to investigate functional brain networks. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 16, 1050605. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.1050605

Pagnotta, M. F., Pascucci, D., & Plomp, G. (2022). Selective attention involves a feature-specific sequential release from inhibitory gating. NeuroImage, 246, 118782. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118782

Rebecca Stevenson

I use intracranial EEG to try to understand the neurophysiological basis of learning and memory. I received my PhD in 2019 from the University of California, Irvine and am currently a postdoc in the Knight lab at the University of California, Berkeley where my research will focus on prefrontal contributions to learning and memory.

Email: Rebecca.ste@gmail.com

Position: Postdoctoral Fellow

Selected Publications:

Stevenson, R. F., Reagh, Z. M., Chun, A. P., Murray, E. A., & Yassa, M. A. (2020). Pattern Separation and Source Memory Engage Distinct Hippocampal and Neocortical Regions during Retrieval. The Journal of Neuroscience, 40(4), 843-851. doi:10.1523/jneurosci.0564-19.2019

Zheng, J., Stevenson, R. F., Mander, B. A., Mnatsakanyan, L., Hsu, F. P. K., Vadera, S., Knight, R. T., Yassa, M. A., & Lin, J. J.. (2019). Multiplexing of Theta and Alpha Rhythms in the Amygdala-Hippocampal Circuit Supports Pattern Separation of Emotional Information. Neuron, 102(4), 887–898.e5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2019.03.025

Stevenson, R. F., Zheng, J., Mnatsakanyan, L., Vadera, S., Knight, R. T., Lin, J. J., & Yassa, M. A. (2018). Hippocampal CA1 gamma power predicts the precision of spatial memory judgments. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 115(40), 10148-10153. doi:10.1073/pnas.1805724115

Stark, S. M., Stevenson, R., Wu, C., Rutledge, S., & Stark, C. E. (2015). Stability of age-related deficits in the mnemonic similarity task across task variations. Behavioral neuroscience, 129(3), 257–268. https://doi.org/10.1037/bne0000055