My Perspective

My latest paper in the Neuroimage: clinical journal assessed the impairments in neural entrainment to speech envelope in early stage psychosis. Impairments in language processing in Schizophrenia are a central aspect of the disorder but the underlying pathophysiology mechanisms are unclear. We tested the hypothesis that neural oscillations are impaired during speech tracking in early-stage Schizophrenia and in participants at clinical high-risk for psychosis (CHR-P). Magnetoencephalography (MEG) was used in combination with source reconstructed time-series to examine delta and theta-band entrainment during continuous speech. Participants were presented with a 5-minute audio recording during which they either attended to the story or word level. Theta-band entrainment in left Heschl’s gyrus, averaged across groups, was significantly lower in the STORY compared to WORD condition, and averaged over conditions, significantly lower in CHR-Ps, but intact in early schizophrenia patients, comp...

D V Gundappa (or DVG as he is fondly known as) was an Indian writer, poet and philosopher in Kannada-language. He is one of the stalwarts of modern Kannada literature. He wrote "Mankuthimmana Kagga" which literally means Rigmaroles for the common man. On the occasion of Kannada Rajyotsava, I'm launching my gamification of the entire 945 Kagga poem collection. The goal is to make Kaggas accessible to the newer generations who are addicted to their smart phones. Game Design: I show the Kagga in Kannada text and its meaning in English (for maximal reach). Next I present the Kagga by jumbling up its 4 lines transliterated in English. The player is expected to put these 4 out of sequence lines into the correct order. The clue is its English meaning. The metrics are the number of tries and time taken to get it right. Is the game interesting enough to you for spending 2 mins daily to learn the Kagga? #KaggaGame I learnt the meaning of Kagga no. 1 in 37 sec at https://kagga-game....

 As a part of Centre for Neurotechnology (CfN) team, on 21st and 22nd Sep 2024 at Advanced Research Centre, Glasgow University, I interacted with the general public of all ages at Explorathon 2024 event to demonstrate ElectroEncepahloGraphy (EEG which records electrical activity of the brain) and to celebrate 100 years of EEG. The audience got to wear portable dry electrode EEG headsets and were able to see neurofeedback in action.

I developed a web game on vibhakthi pratyayas (noun declensions) in Sanskrit language. Here, I gamified Sanskrit based rules of grammar for declining nouns as a sorting puzzle of the Shabd table.  This game entitled 'Shabd' has all three genders, all types of word ending, both for nouns and pronouns. I have included 40 Shabd tables in all. Check your memory on राम shabd below. I learnt the #declension of Masculine word ending in 'a': "Rama" Sanskrit for "God" in 71 sec at https://shabd.glitch.me

The annual Summer School on ‘Brain Disorders Research’ [1] is organised by Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics (CNGG) [2], Cardiff University. This year the fourteenth edition of the summer school was held on July 8-11, 2024 in Cardiff, Wales. Here, I am documenting brief learnings and my reflections on participating in this summer school. The participants consisted of both students and researchers from neuroscience, and bioinformatics background as well as clinicians who were mainly trainee psychiatrists. We had participants from as far as HongKong and China who came to the UK just to participate in this program.  Given this heterogeneous mixture in the audience, the organisers ensured that sufficient background information is shared before introducing new topics be it neuroimaging or genomics. Since I do not have a background in bioinformatics, this introductory information on it was very important to understand and relate to the state of the art research findings t...

Glasgow Science Festival (GSF) returned for its 18th year, celebrating how research is transforming our lives, our cities, and our futures. GSF has over 150+ events spread across 40+ venues across the City of Glasgow, Scotland, UK.   As a part of Centre for Neurotechnology (CfN), on 9th and 10th Jun 2024 at Glasgow Science Centre, I engaged with the general public of all ages to demonstrate  Electroencephalography (EEG) based NeuroFeedBack (NFB) on volunteers who would wear a EEG headband and control their brain rhythm with a real-time visual feedback. This is an exciting application of Brain Computer Interface (BCI).

My gamification of Bhagavad Gita as a typing web app received an Honorary Mention in the category "Made You Learn" for the 2023 'Last year on Glitch' roundup awards by Glitch.com. This project aims to popularize Bhagavad Gita in the younger generation through gamification. Link to the award announcement:  https://glitch.com/discover Link to the game:  https://gita-typing-game.glitch.me/

Here is my latest simple web game based on searching a word in jumbled up letters. Your challenge is to search for English names of the yoga poses (asanas) in a grid of letters. This is a fun way to think about the different poses that each asana makes. Just like the Aasanas themselves, the English words, that the pose represents (object), can also be in horizontal, vertical, or diagonal, either forward or in in reverse order on the grid. You can solve the #YogaPose search in a letter grid game to learn about 5 Asanas at Link: https://yoga-pose-search.glitch.me/ Please give me your feedback as well as your ideas for a small fun game that I could work on next.

As per Bhagavad Gita, "Open Source" movement is the greatest and purest form of work (Sattvic). So in this spirit, I have open sourced my research work (source code and data) at Open Science Framework -  https://osf.io/kf2vj/  and the papers I have published are in open access if not then shared by me freely on my website. 'Bhagavad Gita, the sacred book of the Hindus, says there are 3 kinds of work - Sattvic, Rajasic, and Tamasic. Chapter 18, Verse 23: niyatam sangarahitam araagadweshatah kritam aphalaprepsunaa karma yattat saatwikamuchyate Meaning: An action which is obligatory, which is free from attachment, which is done without love or hatred by one who is not desirous of any reward - that action is declared to be Sattvic. So this implies open source movement is Sattvic in nature! Chapter 18, Verse 24: yattu kaamepsunaa karma saahankaarena vaa punah kriyate bahulaayaasam tadraajasamudaahritam Meaning: But that action which is done by one longing for the fulfillment o...

Shiva Sutra, also known as Akṣara samāmnāya, it refers to a set of 14 aphorisms devised as an arrangement of the sounds of Sanskrit for grammatical exposition by Pāṇini. I developed a web app to make it interesting to learn Shiva sutra. Your challenge is to arrange the tiles,  with either aphorisms or aksharas (alphabets), of this sliding puzzle in the correct order. As a clue you can listen any number of times to an audio clip (from Matheson Trust) reciting the Shiva sutra. In the process of solving it you would implicitly memorize the sutra without realising that you  are, which is the idea behind this game. You can use Devanagari, Kannada, Telugu or Latin based IAST scripts in this challenge. You can share your results the number of moves it took you to solve the sliding puzzle and the initial arrangement of tiles as a matrix of coloured squares. 🟧🟩🟨🟧 🟨🟩🟥🟧 🟧🟥🟩🔴 🟥🟨🟨🟩 Reference : [1] Shiva sutra sliding puzzle  https://shiva-sutra.glitch.me/

I won a prize for my photo submission entitled "Hollow Mask Illusion" under "the 'why' of shapes" category (adult level) in the "Maths Inside 2023" photo competition that aims to popularize scientific thinking in the general public. My submission discusses why people do not perceive the obverse side of a mask as a concave face but as a regular face instead. This illusion is robust in general and everyone can be surprised at this trick on the brain unless they suffer from Schizophrenia. Here is my winning photo and the caption. This image shows the obverse side of a mask that has been painted to showcase a face. When people see the reverse side of a mask, they are usually unable to perceive it as concave or a hollow face, but instead see a convex regular face as seen in this image. This illusion is a classic example of how brain uses its top-down expectations to shape visual perception. The "Predictive coding account of perceptual inference...

Yoga, the ancient Indian discipline for physical exercise, has many benefits to the body and even one's mind. In this day and age with bulging waistline and sedentary lifestyle, Yoga assumes even more importance for our health and wellbeing. In my attempt to create more interest in Yoga among the newer generation, I created a web app that presents a jigsaw puzzle made out of a yoga pose.  In this game, the image of an Aasana is cut up into 12 tiles and presented on a grid in a random order. The player needs to swap the tiles into the correct order to solve the puzzle. A clue in the form of the equivalent English name of the pose is also shown. Upon solving the jigsaw, the player is presented with details of that particular Aasana like level of yogi / yogini to practise this, and few benefits of doing the Aasana. Here is the link to the web app: https://yoga-jig-saw.glitch.me/ Do you find it interesting to play and learn more about the various Aasanas? Please give me feedback on how...