About Me

I'm a postdoctoral researcher in Michael Silver’s lab and the Center for the Science of Psychedelics at UC Berkeley.

I study the neural processes that shape sensory information to generate perception and control behavior. In my research I use psychopharmacological, psychophysical, computational, and neuroimaging methods.

Education

PhD in Psychology

Cognitive Neuroscience concentration
Advisor: George R. Mangun
Dissertation: The Neural Mechanisms of Visual Attention
University of California, Davis
2017 – 2021

Bachelor of Arts

with majors in Cognitive Science
and Molecular and Cellular Biology (Neurobiology concentration)
University of California, Berkeley
2009 – 2013

Professional Positions

Postdoctoral Researcher

Advisor: Michael Silver
Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics
Department of Neuroscience
University of California, Berkeley
2021 – Present

Lecturer

Course: Cognitive Neuroscience
Department of Psychology
University of California, Davis
Summer 2023

Publications

Noah S, Shen M, Erowid E, Erowid F, Silver M. Quantitative analysis of subjective experience reports reveals systematic differences in visual effects across psychedelic compounds. Under review.
Privitera C, Noah S, Carney T, Klein S, Lenartowicz A, Hinshaw S, McCracken J, Nigg J, Karalunas S, Oliva M, Betts S, Simpson G. (2024) Pupillary dilations in a Target/Distractor visual task paradigm and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Neuroscience Letters 818. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2023.137556
Noah S, Meyyappan S, Ding M, Mangun GR (2023) Time courses of attended and ignored object representations. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 35 (4): 645–658. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_01972
Noah S, Meyyappan S, Ding M, Mangun GR (2022) Anticipatory attention is a stable state induced by transient control mechanisms. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 16:965689. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.965689
Noah S, Powell T, Khodayari N, Olivan D, Ding M, Mangun GR (2020) Neural Mechanisms of Attentional Control for Objects: Decoding EEG Alpha when Anticipating Faces, Scenes, and Tools. Journal of Neuroscience 40(25) 4913-4924. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2685-19.2020
Povazan M… Noah S… Edden RAE (2020) Comparison of multi-vendor, single-voxel MR spectroscopy data acquired in healthy brain at 26 sites. Radiology 00:1–10. DOI: 10.1148/radiol.2020191037
Noah S, Mangun GR (2020) Recent Evidence that Attention is Necessary, but Not Sufficient, for Conscious Perception. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1464(1):52-63. DOI: 10.1111/nyas.14030
Mikkelsen M… Noah S… Edden RAE (2019) Big GABA II: Water-Referenced Edited MR Spectroscopy at 25 Research Sites. Neuroimage May 1;191:537-548. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.02.059
Mikkelsen M… Noah S… Edden RAE (2017) Big GABA: Edited MR Spectroscopy at 24 Research Sites. Neuroimage 159:32-45. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.07.021
Greenhouse I, King M, Noah S, Maddock RJ, Ivry RB (2017) Individual differences in resting cortico-spinal excitability are correlated with reaction time and GABA content in motor cortex. Journal of Neuroscience 37(10):2686-2696. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3129-16.2017
Greenhouse I, Noah S, Maddock RJ, Ivry RB (2016) Individual differences in GABA content are reliable but are not uniform across the human cortex. Neuroimage 139:1-7. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.06.007

Talks and Poster Presentations

Talks

Neural Mechanisms of Attentional Control for Objects: Decoding EEG Alpha when Anticipating Faces, Scenes, and Tools
Neuromatch Online Conference, October 2020
Neural Mechanisms of Object Based Attention
UC Davis Center for Vision Science Annual Symposium, January 2020

Conference Poster Presentations

Noah S, Shen M, Erowid E, Erowid F, Silver M. Quantitative analysis of subjective experience reports indicates systematic differences in visual effects across psychedelic compounds. Bay Area Vision Research Day, September 2023
Noah S, Meyyappan S, Ding M, Mangun GR. Tracking the Fate of Distracting Visual Stimuli from Decoding of Attended and Ignored Visual Information in EEG. Vision Science Society annual conference, May 2022
Noah S, Meyyappan S, Ding M, Mangun GR. Anticipatory Attention is a Stable State Induced by Transient Control Mechanisms. Cognitive Neuroscience Society annual conference, April 2022
Shen M, Noah S, Erowid E, Erowid F, Silver M. Natural Language Processing Analysis of Erowid Drug Experience Reports. California Cognitive Science Conference, April 2022 (Best poster award winner)
Noah S, Powell T, Khodayari N, Olivan D, Ding M, Mangun GR. Neural Mechanisms of Attention to Objects. Cognitive Neuroscience Society virtual conference, May 2020
Noah S, Powell T, Khodayari N, Olivan D, Ding M, Mangun GR. Anticipatory object-based attention modulates EEG alpha activity. Vision Science Society annual conference, May 2019
Noah S, Powell T, Khodayari N, Olivan D, Ding M, Mangun GR. Object-based attention modulates EEG alpha activity. Cognitive Neuroscience Society annual conference, March 2019
Povazan M et al. The use of multi-vendor, multi-site 1H-MRS data acquired at 26 sites as a benchmark for MRS standardization: Comparison of quantification software. International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine annual meeting, April 2019.
Noah S, Powell T, Khodayari N, Olivan D, Mangun GR. Object attention modulates alpha band activity. Annual Mind and Brain Poster Day, Center for Mind and Brain, UC Davis, May 2018
Mikkelsen M et al. Integrative analysis of GABA-edited MRS data acquired at 19 research sites. International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine annual meeting, April 2017.
Lenartowicz A, Simpson G, O’Connell S, Noah S, Head A, Bilder R, McCracken J, Bookheimer S, Reid R, Cohen M. New EEG measures reveal infra-slow fluctuations in both attending and ignoring in adults with ADHD that provide high accuracy in discriminating ADHD from control. Society for Neuroscience annual conference, October 2015.
Greenhouse I, Noah S, Maddock R, Ivry R. Individual Differences in Cortical GABA Concentrations and Motor Excitability. Organization for Human Brain Mapping, June 2015.
Noah S, Bayliss J, Vedamurthy I, Nahum M, Levi D, Bavelier D. Comparing dichoptic action video game play to patching in adults with amblyopia. Vision Science Society annual conference, May 2014.

Awards

National Eye Institute Early Career Scientist Travel Grant
Vision Science Society Meeting 2022
2022
National Eye Institute Traineeship
UC Davis Vision Science Training Program (T32)
2019 – 2021
UC Davis Graduate Student Travel Award 2020
Honorable Mention – National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships Program 2019
Travel, lodging support scholarship for NIH-funded fMRI training course at University of Michigan 2019
Travel support scholarship to NSF-funded Big Data Neurosciences Workshop 2017 in Bloomington, IN 2017

Et Cetera

Affiliations

Graduate Student Affiliate
UC Davis DataLab (formerly UC Davis Data Science Initiative)
2017 – 2021

Scientific Service

Ad Hoc Reviewer:
ENeuro
Journal of Neuroscience
Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Vision Research
Journal of Psychopharmacology

Additional Education

Laminar fMRI course at MGH in Boston, MA 2023
Kavli Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience 2022
Neuromatch Academy
Computational Neuroscience Interactive Track
2020
NIH-funded fMRI training course
at University of Michigan
2019