Whitney is currently interested in understanding how the posterior parietal cortex integrates a wide range of information (location, reward, task strategy, effort, etc.) to make visual-motor plans. To do this, Whitney works with both nonhuman primates and humans using a combination of functional ultrasound neuroimaging (fUS) and single-unit electrophysiology. He hopes that his research will have broader implications for understanding and treating neurological disorders resulting in visual-motor impairments, such as optic ataxia and oculomotor apraxia seen in Balint Syndrome.
Education and Career
Whitney Griggs graduated from Whitman College (Walla Walla, WA) in 2013 with a double major in Applied Mathematics and Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Molecular Biology (BBMB). His BBMB honors thesis was based upon human psychophysics research investigating how the eye and head are coordinated during large amplitude gaze movements while his math thesis explored how non-parametric statistics can be applied in systems neuroscience. After college, Whitney worked at the National Eye Institute for 3 years doing rhesus macaque electrophysiology, fast-scan cyclic voltammetry, and fMRI research under the mentorship of Dr. Okihide Hikosaka. Whitney was accepted into the UCLA-Caltech Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) in 2017 and plans to graduate with his dual MD-PhD in 2025. When not in classes or doing research, Whitney enjoys long-distance trail running and can likely be found in the San Gabriel or Santa Monica mountains on a running adventure.
Publications
SL Norman, D Maresca, VN Christopoulos, WS Griggs, C Demene, M Tanter, MG Shapiro, RA Andersen Single Trial Decoding of Movement Intentions Using Functional Ultrasound Neuroimaging.bioRxiv 2020.05.12.086132 (2020) doi:10.1101/2020.05.12.086132.
WS Griggs, VN Christopoulos, SL Norman, D Maresca, C. Demene, T Deffieux, M Tanter, MG Shapiro, RA Andersen. Functional ultrasound in behaving non-human primates reveals nonhomogeneous organization of posterior parietal cortex sub regions. International Workshop on Functional Ultrasound Imaging of the Brain. Cargèse, Corsica, France. October 28, 2019. Poster
Please see this Orcid link for the most up-to-date list of my publications.
