Speakers and Faculty


The 2019 NYC Neuromodulation Conference and Neuromodulation: The Science bring together leaders across neuromodulation, pain management, healthcare, and wearables. This unparalleled collection of thought leaders supports an engaging program spanning three days (October 4-6, 2019) with an additional one day of Preconference Workshops (October 3, 2019). See all speakers >>

Roy Hamilton, MD

Roy Hamilton, MD

Dr. Roy Hamilton is an Associate Professor in the departments of Neurology and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also directs the Laboratory for Cognition and Neural Stimulation (LCNS). He has been engaged in research in the field of brain stimulation since 1998, and has employed TMS and tDCS in a range of studies exploring a range of topics, including but not limited to cognitive control, visuospatial processing, language production, semantic memory, and creativity.

Interview with Roy Hamilton, MD

What are you most excited about (or looking forward to) at NTS/NYN Napa?

RH: Recent years have witnessed remarkable advances in the ability of neuroscience to characterize and influence brain circuits that drive sensorimotor functions, cognition, and behavior. Neuromodulation techniques have emerged as especially powerful tools, both for interrogating intact brain centers experimentally and for promoting recovery in patients with neurologic deficits, cognitive impairments, and psychiatric symptoms. Excitingly, neuromodulation approaches are increasingly being combined synergistically with other cutting-edge advances in neuroscience in order to make increasingly sophisticated inferences about the structure- function relationships that underlie cognition, perception, and action, the mechanisms by which neurologic and psychiatric disorders negatively impact these processes, and the ways in which novel neuromodulation-based interventions may be effective in treating these conditions. NTS/NYN Napa provides an outstanding opportunity for both imminent thought leaders and rising stars in the field of neuromodulation to share their groundbreaking insights, supported by the most robust scientific evidence available.

Describe the more formative experiences in your education or training that informed your current research? Were there specific technologies, ideas, or applications that inspired you?

RH: My career in neuromodulation has focused on employing noninvasive brain stimulation techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial electrical stimulation (tDCS) as tools for the elucidating systems-level neuroscientific principles that give rise to human cognition, and to employ the same tools to enhance the recovery of patients with focal deficits of cognition resulting from brain insults such as stroke and neurodegenerative disease. My formative early years were spent at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, where I developed a passion for neuromodulation by working with Alvaro Pascual-Leone, MD, PhD, a pioneer in the field of noninvasive brain stimulation. In subsequent years I had the opportunity to grow as a behavioral neurologist by working with a luminary in this field, H. Branch Coslett, MD, at the University of Pennsylvania. We subsequently partnered to build Penn’s Laboratory for Cognition and Neural Stimulation (LCNS), which I direct. I have enjoyed approximately 20 years in the field of noninvasive brain stimulation, and I eagerly look forward to the discoveries and challenges that the future holds for this field.