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What we do

Research

We use causal neuroimaging to find the brain circuits behind symptoms of autism, ADHD, and other neurodevelopmental conditions — then test whether modulating them changes behavior. Explore our work by condition or by approach.

Conditions we study

Autism

All 13

Localizing the circuits behind autism's core and associated symptoms — social communication, sensory differences, face processing — and how to modulate them.

  1. Lesion network mapping of focal injury-related aggression finds two distinct network injury patterns

    Miller GN , Lu Z , Peng S , Kletenik I , Ortega-Márquez J , Tripathy S , Wall J , Darby RR , Cohen AL

    Brain Communications · 2026

    Gillian Miller, BA Gillian Miller Zexia Lu, MS, BA Zexia Lu Shaoling Peng, PhD Shaoling Peng Isaiah Kletenik, MD Isaiah Kletenik Jorge Ortega Marquez, MD, MMSc Jorge Ortega Marquez Shreya Tripathy, BA Shreya Tripathy Juliana Wall Juliana Wall Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen
    Mentee-led Cohen first/senior Open access DOI Scholar

  2. Naturalistic movie viewing is an effective functional localizer of the fusiform face area in adolescents with and without autism

    Steeby CJ , Miller GN , Castro Palacin A , Cohen AL

    Imaging Neuroscience · 2026

    Clara Steeby, BS Clara Steeby Gillian Miller, BA Gillian Miller Alberto Castro Palacin, BS, MSc Alberto Castro Palacin Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen
    Mentee-led Cohen first/senior Open access DOI Scholar

  3. Lesions associated with autism symptoms map to a cerebellar brain network in tuberous sclerosis complex

    Herman WX , Miller GN , Sahin M , Peters J , Warfield SK , Krueger DA , Bebin EM , Northrup H , Wu JY , Fox MD , Cohen AL , on behalf of the TACERN Group

    Annals of the Child Neurology Society · 2025

    Wendy Xiao Herman, MD, PhD Wendy Xiao Herman Gillian Miller, BA Gillian Miller Jurriaan M. Peters, MD, PhD Jurriaan M. Peters Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen
    Mentee-led Collaboration DOI Scholar

  4. Network localization of altered auditory and somatosensory sensitivity based on causal brain lesions

    Tripathy S , Miller GN , Cohen AL

    Brain Communications · 2025

    Shreya Tripathy, BA Shreya Tripathy Gillian Miller, BA Gillian Miller Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen
    Mentee-led Cohen first/senior Open access DOI Scholar

ADHD & attention

Coordinate and lesion network mapping of attention, with pharmaco-fMRI and real-time fMRI neurofeedback to probe and modulate the circuits involved.

  1. Coordinate Network Mapping of Focal Brain Volume Differences in ADHD Reveals Common Patterns That Lack Specificity: A Systematic Review

    Wall J , Miller GN , Taylor JJ , Stubbs JL , Warfield SK , Cohen AL

    Annals of the Child Neurology Society · 2025

    Juliana Wall Juliana Wall Gillian Miller, BA Gillian Miller Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen
    Cited by 6 Mentee-led Cohen first/senior DOI Scholar

  2. Matched neurofeedback during fMRI differentially activates reward-related circuits in active and sham groups

    Guler S * , Cohen AL * , Afacan O , Warfield SK

    Journal of Neuroimaging · 2021

    Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen
    Cited by 3 Cohen first/senior Collaboration DOI Scholar

  3. Role of the anterior insula in task-level control and focal attention

    Nelson SM , Dosenbach NU , Cohen AL , Wheeler ME , Schlaggar BL , Petersen SE

    Brain Structure & Function · 2010

    Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen
    Cited by 569 Collaboration Open access DOI Scholar

  4. Control networks in paediatric Tourette syndrome show immature and anomalous patterns of functional connectivity

    Church JA , Fair DA , Dosenbach NU , Cohen AL , Miezin FM , Petersen SE , Schlaggar BL

    Brain · 2009

    Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen
    Cited by 353 Collaboration Open access DOI Scholar

* co-first / co-senior author

Tuberous sclerosis & epilepsy

All 13

Tubers and epilepsy foci as natural experiments — focal anomalies that, when they share a symptom, reveal the responsible brain network.

  1. Lesion network mapping in pediatric epilepsy

    Sánchez Fernández I , Kampman SL , Schaper FLWVJ , Fox MD , Warren AEL , Cohen AL , Peters J

    Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry · 2026

    Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen Jurriaan M. Peters, MD, PhD Jurriaan M. Peters
    Collaboration DOI Scholar

  2. A generalized epilepsy network derived from brain abnormalities and deep brain stimulation

    Ji GJ , Fox MD , Morton-Dutton M , Wang Y , Sun J , Hu P , Chen X , Jiang Y , Zhu C , Tian Y , Zhang Z , Akkad H , Nordberg J , Joutsa J , Torres Diaz CV , Groppa S , Gonzalez-Escamilla G , Toledo M , Dalic LJ , Archer JS , Selway R , Stavropoulos I , Valentin A , Yang J , Isbaine F , Gross RE , Park S , Gregg NM , Cukiert A , Middlebrooks EH , Dosenbach NUF , Turner J , Warren AEL , Chua MMJ , Cohen AL , Larivière S , Neudorfer C , Horn A , Sarkis RA , Bubrick EJ , Fisher RS , Rolston JD , Wang K , Schaper FLWVJ

    Nature Communications · 2025

    Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen
    Cited by 28 Collaboration Open access DOI Scholar

  3. Accumulated seizure burden predicts neurodevelopmental outcome at 36months of age in patients with tuberous sclerosis complex

    Ihnen SKZ , Alperin S , Capal JK , Cohen AL , Peters J , Bebin EM , Northrup HA , Sahin M , Krueger DA , TACERN Study Group

    Epilepsia · 2025

    Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen Jurriaan M. Peters, MD, PhD Jurriaan M. Peters
    Cited by 11 Collaboration Open access DOI Scholar

  4. Convolutional neural networks for automatic tuber segmentation and quantification of tuber burden in tuberous sclerosis complex

    Sánchez Fernández I , Soldatelli MD , Miller GN , Gout CF , Broekhuizen EC , den Hertog ICJ , Pijs DA , Apostolopoulos E , Kaur P , Ouaalam A , Bebin ME , Northrup H , Krueger DA , Wu J , Cohen AL , Sahin M , Karimi D , Warfield SK , Peters J

    Epilepsia · 2025

    Gillian Miller, BA Gillian Miller Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen Jurriaan M. Peters, MD, PhD Jurriaan M. Peters
    Collaboration Open access DOI Scholar

Perinatal stroke

Mapping how early focal injury reshapes developing brain networks and gives rise to specific cognitive and behavioral symptoms.

  1. Comparison of Brain Normalization Software and Lesion Compensation Techniques in Chronic Perinatal Stroke Imaging

    Miller GN , Steeby CJ , Ortega-Marquez J , Palacin AC , Chui C , Alhadid K , Sullivan AW , Boes AD , Musolino PL , Cohen AL

    Imaging Neuroscience · 2025

    Gillian Miller, BA Gillian Miller Clara Steeby, BS Clara Steeby Jorge Ortega Marquez, MD, MMSc Jorge Ortega Marquez Alberto Castro Palacin, BS, MSc Alberto Castro Palacin Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen
    Mentee-led Cohen first/senior DOI Scholar

Methods & approaches

Functional connectivity

All 19

Resting-state functional connectivity and functional parcellation of the brain — and how its network architecture develops from childhood to adulthood.

  1. Prediction of stroke severity: systematic evaluation of lesion representations

    Bonkhoff AK , Cohen AL , Drew W , Ferguson M , Hussain A , Lin C , Schaper FLWVJ , Bourached A , Giese AK , Oliveira LC , Regenhardt RW , Schirmer MD , Jern C , Lindgren AG , Maguire J , Wu O , Zafar S , Rhee JY , Kimchi EY , Corbetta M , Rost NS , Fox MD

    Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology · 2024

    Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen
    Cited by 4 Collaboration Open access DOI Scholar

  2. Reducing the Effects of Motion Artifacts in fMRI: A Structured Matrix Completion Approach

    Balachandrasekaran A , Cohen AL , Afacan O , Warfield SK , Gholipour A

    IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging · 2022

    Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen
    Cited by 17 Collaboration DOI Scholar

  3. Using causal methods to map symptoms to brain circuits in neurodevelopmental disorders: moving from identifying correlates to developing treatments

    Cohen AL

    Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders · 2022

    Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen
    Cohen first/senior Open access DOI

  4. Parcellating an individual subject's cortical and subcortical brain structures using snowball sampling of resting-state correlations

    Wig GS , Laumann TO , Cohen AL , Power JD , Nelson SM , Glasser MF , Miezin FM , Snyder AZ , Schlaggar BL , Petersen SE

    Cerebral Cortex · 2014

    Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen
    Cited by 151 Collaboration Open access DOI Scholar

Network mapping

All 39

Linking focal lesions, tubers, and coordinates to common brain networks, localizing the circuits that produce specific symptoms across disorders.

  1. Lesion network mapping in pediatric epilepsy

    Sánchez Fernández I , Kampman SL , Schaper FLWVJ , Fox MD , Warren AEL , Cohen AL , Peters J

    Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry · 2026

    Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen Jurriaan M. Peters, MD, PhD Jurriaan M. Peters
    Collaboration DOI Scholar

  2. Lesion network mapping of focal injury-related aggression finds two distinct network injury patterns

    Miller GN , Lu Z , Peng S , Kletenik I , Ortega-Márquez J , Tripathy S , Wall J , Darby RR , Cohen AL

    Brain Communications · 2026

    Gillian Miller, BA Gillian Miller Zexia Lu, MS, BA Zexia Lu Shaoling Peng, PhD Shaoling Peng Isaiah Kletenik, MD Isaiah Kletenik Jorge Ortega Marquez, MD, MMSc Jorge Ortega Marquez Shreya Tripathy, BA Shreya Tripathy Juliana Wall Juliana Wall Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen
    Mentee-led Cohen first/senior Open access DOI Scholar

  3. Lesions causing aphantasia are connected to the fusiform imagery node

    Kutsche J , Howard C , Palacin AC , Drew W , Michel M , Cohen AL , Fox MD , Kletenik I

    Cortex · 2026

    Alberto Castro Palacin, BS, MSc Alberto Castro Palacin Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen Isaiah Kletenik, MD Isaiah Kletenik
    Cited by 4 Collaboration DOI Scholar

  4. The methodological foundations of lesion network mapping remain sound

    Siddiqi S , Horn A , Schaper FLWVJ , Khosravani S , Cohen AL , Joutsa J , Rolston JD , Ferguson MA , Snider SB , Winkler AM , Akram H , Smith SM , Nichols TE , Friston K , Boes AD , Fox MD

    bioRxiv (preprint) · 2026

    Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen
    Cited by 7 Collaboration Open access DOI Scholar

Methods & open tools

All 27

Reproducible, open neuroimaging tooling — preprocessing, normalization, BIDS-standard pipelines, and the connectome resources that make this work possible.

  1. Lesion network mapping in pediatric epilepsy

    Sánchez Fernández I , Kampman SL , Schaper FLWVJ , Fox MD , Warren AEL , Cohen AL , Peters J

    Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry · 2026

    Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen Jurriaan M. Peters, MD, PhD Jurriaan M. Peters
    Collaboration DOI Scholar

  2. Lesion network mapping of focal injury-related aggression finds two distinct network injury patterns

    Miller GN , Lu Z , Peng S , Kletenik I , Ortega-Márquez J , Tripathy S , Wall J , Darby RR , Cohen AL

    Brain Communications · 2026

    Gillian Miller, BA Gillian Miller Zexia Lu, MS, BA Zexia Lu Shaoling Peng, PhD Shaoling Peng Isaiah Kletenik, MD Isaiah Kletenik Jorge Ortega Marquez, MD, MMSc Jorge Ortega Marquez Shreya Tripathy, BA Shreya Tripathy Juliana Wall Juliana Wall Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen
    Mentee-led Cohen first/senior Open access DOI Scholar

  3. Naturalistic movie viewing is an effective functional localizer of the fusiform face area in adolescents with and without autism

    Steeby CJ , Miller GN , Castro Palacin A , Cohen AL

    Imaging Neuroscience · 2026

    Clara Steeby, BS Clara Steeby Gillian Miller, BA Gillian Miller Alberto Castro Palacin, BS, MSc Alberto Castro Palacin Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen
    Mentee-led Cohen first/senior Open access DOI Scholar

  4. The methodological foundations of lesion network mapping remain sound

    Siddiqi S , Horn A , Schaper FLWVJ , Khosravani S , Cohen AL , Joutsa J , Rolston JD , Ferguson MA , Snider SB , Winkler AM , Akram H , Smith SM , Nichols TE , Friston K , Boes AD , Fox MD

    bioRxiv (preprint) · 2026

    Alexander Li Cohen, MD, PhD Alexander Li Cohen
    Cited by 7 Collaboration Open access DOI Scholar