Sumitash Jana | Humanities & Social Sciences

Sumitash Jana

Sumitash Jana
Psychology
CV Summary: 

Sumitash Jana is an Assistant Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the Cognitive Science programme in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. He joined the department in September, 2021. His research interest lies in studying the brain mechanisms that mediate self-control, i.e. how we control our movements, thoughts, and actions.

Contact Information

sjana@hss.iitd.ac.in

Office: MS 602 B

Telephone: +91-11-2654 8766 (O)

Research Areas

His research broadly focuses on understanding the brain mechanism that mediate self-control. Self-control is our ability to focus on our tasks and goals despite environmental interruptions (e.g., choosing to keep reading despite notifications on your phone) but also flexibly change our goals when the need arises (e.g. choosing to pick up the phone when there is an important call). His research uses behavioral studies, brain imaging (e.g., electroencephalography) and brain stimulation (e.g., transcranial magnetic stimulation) methods to investigate self-control.

His current research goals include understanding the impact of mind-wandering and mediation on self-control in both healthy and clinical populations, and studying self-control in more-realistic scenarios using virtual reality.

Academic Background

B.Sc. Physiology (Presidency College, Kolkata)
2005-2008

M.Sc. Biophysics, Molecular Biology & Genetics (Calcutta University, Kolkata)
2008-2010

Ph.D. in Neuroscience (Centre for Neuroscience, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore)
Advisor: Prof. Aditya Murthy
2010-2017

Post-doctoral research in Cognitive Neuroscience (Department of Psychology, University of California San Diego)
Advisor: Prof. Adam R. Aron
2017-2021

Publications

Does action-stopping involve separate pause and cancel processes? A view from premotor cortex
R Hannah, S Jana, V Muralidharan (Cortex; in press)

Mind-wandering impedes response inhibition by affecting the triggering of the inhibitory process
S Jana, AR Aron (Psychological Sciences; in press) PsyArxiv

Double blind disruption of right inferior frontal cortex with TMS erodes right frontal beta power for action-stopping
KK Sundby, S Jana , AR Aron J Neurophysiol 125: 140–153, 2021

Computational mechanisms mediating inhibitory control of coordinated eye-hand movements
S Jana*, A Gopal*, A Murthy Brain Sci. 2021, 11(5), 607
* Equal contributions

Temporal cascade of frontal, motor and muscle processes underlying human action-stopping
S Jana*, R Hannah*, V Muralidharan, AR Aron eLife 2020; 9:e50371
* Equal contributions

Spatiotemporal coupling between eye and hand trajectories during curved hand movements
S Jana, A Murthy J of Motor Behavior, 53:1, 47-58

Disentangling the role of posterior parietal cortex in response inhibition
R Hannah, S Jana J Neurosci 39 (35): 6814-6816

A novel fiber Bragg grating system for eye tracking
S. Umesh, S.Pant, S Padma, S Jana, V Vasudevan, A Murthy, S Asokan J. Adv. Res. 6: 25-34

Task context determines whether common or separate inhibitory signals underlie the control of eye-hand movements
S Jana, A Murthy J Neurophysiol 120: 1695-1711

Contrasting speed accuracy trade-offs for eye and hand movements reveal the optimal nature of saccade kinematics
A Gopal*, S Jana*, A Murthy J Neurophysiol 118: 1664–1676
* Equal contributions

A Computational Framework for Understanding Eye-Hand Coordination
S Jana*, A Gopal*, A Murthy J. Indian Inst. Sci. 97(4): 543-554
* Equal contributions

Evidence of common and separate accumulators underlying flexible eye-hand coordination
S Jana, A Gopal, A Murthy J Neurophysiol 117: 348–364

Exploration of joint redundancy but not task space variability facilitates supervised motor learning
P Singh, S Jana, A Ghoshal, A Murthy PNAS 112: 14414–14419

 

Conferences

Combining Imaging and TMS for targeted modulation of frontal and motor brain networks
Speaker at Neuromodulation conference, 2020

Unexpected sounds facilitate attentional shifts: Testing a model of stopping-induced interruption of cognition
Speaker at YKavli meeting at Kavli Institute of Brain & Mind, 2018

Successfully stopping a movement has global motor effects as evident in a pause of tonic EMG of an irrelevant effector
Poster at Neural Control of Movement conference in Santa Fe, USA in 2018 See poster

Successfully stopping a movement has global motor effects as evident in a pause of tonic EMG of a task-unrelated effector
Speaker at YKavli meeting at Kavli Institute of Brain & Mind, 2018

EMG signatures of response inhibition in the task-unrelated and task-related muscles
Poster at SfN Neuroscience conference in San Diego, USA in 2018 See poster

Flexible architecture of eye-hand coordination
Speaker at Bioengineering Department, IISc in 2016

Eye-Hand coordination in visual search
Speaker at 2nd Annual Conference in Cognitive Science, IIT Kanpur in 2015

Eye-Hand Coordination in visual search
Poster at SfN Neuroscience conference in Chicago, USA in 2015 See poster

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