Itamar Grunfeld

Itamar Grunfeld is a neuroscientist with a background in electrophysiology. He is passionate about taking neuroscience tools from the bench to the bedside; meaning his focus is on translating methods from basic science settings towards clinical settings. He has spent years pipetting and grinding in the lab and working with patients and physicians to develop better tools for understanding the brain. His PhD work at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York was focused on understanding how chronic stress exposure can change the brain and impact decision-making. His postdoctoral work at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx centered around the relationship between metabolism and stress. His current position is at the Center for Human Neuroscience Research within Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech, where he works within neurosurgery departments alongside patients with epilepsy and motor disorders to pilot new technologies that allow researchers to record sub-millisecond changes in neurotransmitter activation directly from the brain.