DOORS 7PM | SPEAKER 7.30PM

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In this talk, Iris will explore how the brain’s physiology is shaped—sometimes quietly, sometimes dramatically—by the body’s own rhythms.

We’ll look at how MRI can measure cerebral blood flow, how pulsations from the heart and lungs leave their imprint on the brain, and how cerebrovascular reactivity reveals the brain’s ability to adapt. We will close with a glimpse of magnetic resonance elastography, which lets us “feel” the brain’s mechanical properties in vivo and highlights the work we are doing to link the brain’s mechanics with its function.

Iris Asllani is Associate Professor and Head of MRI Physics in the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the University of Sussex. Her work centres on developing MRI methods to study the brain—its physiology, metabolism, and the body rhythms that shape it. Trained originally in Theoretical Nuclear Physics at the University of Tirana, she went on to receive two Fulbright Scholarships to pursue her Master’s and PhD at the University of Washington in the U.S. She later joined Columbia University in New York, where she established the Brain Perfusion Program at the then newly founded MRI Centre. Beyond her research, Dr. Asllani is active in global engineering and education. She is an adjunct professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria and serves as Vice-Chair and Chair of the Advisory Board for the Consortium for Advancement of MRI Education and Research in Africa (CAMERA).