About the Talk: The principle of targeting brain circuits has drawn increasing attention with the growth of therapeutic brain stimulation. However, most neuroimaging research seeks to identify correlates of symptoms, not causes. This creates challenges for interpretation and translation into treatments. A return to causal mapping of human brain function based on brain lesions and brain stimulation is underway. New approaches can combine these causal sources of information with modern neuroimaging and electrophysiology techniques to gain new insights. Here, I will review recent advances in causal brain mapping, their relevance for developing treatment targets, and examples of successful brain stimulation targets derived from this approach.

About the Speaker: Shan Siddiqi is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, a neuropsychiatrist at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, and director of psychiatric neuromodulation research for the Center for Brain Circuit Therapeutics. His research is focused on causal mapping of human brain function and dysfunction. Using techniques such as functional connectivity MRI, his lab maps brain circuits to link brain lesions and brain stimulation sites that can modify different psychiatric symptoms. These circuits can then be targeted with treatments such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and deep brain stimulation (DBS) to alleviate symptoms in psychiatric disorders. His work has been recognized with multiple awards from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, the American Neuropsychiatric Association, the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, Harvard Medical School, and many others.

Suggested Reading (in order of preference):
1. Siddiqi, Kording, Parvizi, and Fox, “Causal mapping of human brain function,” Nature Rev Neurosci 2022
2. Siddiqi and Fox, “Targeting symptom-specific networks with TMS,” Biol Psych 2024
3. Siddiqi et al., “The future of brain circuit-targeted therapeutics,” Neuropsychopharmacology 2024