I am a neuroscientist passionate about uncovering brain organization and structure, with a special interest in language. My work bridges basic science, clinical applications, and educational innovation. Over the past three years, I’ve held a primary postdoctoral appointments at the VA Loma Linda under the mentorship of Dr. Jonathan Venezia, where I developed diffusion imaging methods to detect white matter abnormalities associated with blast-related hearing loss. Concurrently, I am holding post-doctoral partial appointments in 2 Additional labs. At UC Irvine, I investigate speech motor planning using fMRI and stereotactic EEG, identifying the role of the dorsal premotor speech area in prosodic modulation. At Loma Linda University Medical Center, I study hippocampal and frontal networks during attention and navigation, with applications to early Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Hitherto, these projects have resulted in a three-year research grant, several first-author publications, a first-author book chapter, and a website depicting a novel atlas of the human brain.

CURRENT ACADEMIC POSITIONS

2022-Present Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Veterans Affairs Loma-Linda Health Care System (VALLHCS), Auditory Research Lab

2023-Present Part time Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Loma-Linda University – Medical Center (LLUMC), Circuit Brain Dynamics Lab

2023-Present Part time Post-Doctoral Fellowship at University of California – Irvine (UCI), Auditory and Language Neuroscience Research Lab.

ACADEMIC HISTORY

2004-2008 Undergraduate student at Bar-Ilan University (Neuroscience degree), graduated Magna Cum Laude

2009-2010 Research Assistant at the VA Martinez (TBI Research)

2010-2015 PhD in Psychology at Bangor University

2011-2013 Lecturer at the Visceral Mind Summer program

2012, 2015, 2017 Lecturer at the ‘Kavli Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience’

2015-2020 Software Engineer at Poliva Ltd

2019-2020 Adjunct Professor at California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB) teaching a Biopsychology course

2022 Adjunct Professor at Santa Clara University (SCU) teaching Behavioral Neuroscience course

RESEARCH AND TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Postdoctoral Researcher — VA Loma Linda Healthcare System, Auditory Cognition Lab (2022–Present)
Mentor: Jonathan Venezia

As a post-doctoral fellow at the Veterans Affairs Loma Linda Healthcare System (VALLHCS), under the mentorship of Dr. Jonathan Venezia, I design and analyze novel experiments using EEG, and MRI protocols (fMRI, DTI) to investigate hearing loss in blast-exposed Veterans. Hitherto, using novel methodological approaches, we managed to map the white matter pathways associated with this condition (Poliva et al., 2024). In particular, we were the first to correlate abnormalities within the auditory thalamo-cortical pathway (auditory radiations) with impairment in auditory processing (Poliva et al., 2025). In addition to neuroimaging, we are presently in the midst of an EEG study, in which we investigate the impact of blasts on auditory evoked potentials, such auditory brainstem evoked potentials, mis-match negativity, and attention related potentials, such as P300.

Postdoctoral Researcher — Loma Linda University, Neurology Dept. (2023–Present)
Mentor: Mohammed Dastjerdi

At Loma-Linda University (LLU) – medical center, under the mentorship of Dr. Mohammed Dastjerdi, I design and analyze novel experiments using stereotactic EEG (sEEG). The research in this lab focuses on identifying the brain networks associated with affective and cognitive faculties (in particular to connectivity of frontal lobe cortices with the hippocampus and amygdala). Presently, we are in the data collection phase of 3 studies, which explore the neural correlates of audio-spatial attention, language comprehension and consolidation, and working memory to long-term memory encoding and recall during spatial navigation.

Postdoctoral Researcher — University of California, Irvine, Auditory and Language Neuroscience Research Lab (2023–Present)
Mentor: Gregory S. Hickok

At the University of California – Irvine, under the mentorship of Professor Gregory Hickok, I design and analyze novel experiments using fMRI and sEEG. The focus of this research is to investigate the linguistic role of a sub-region of the dorsal premotor cortex, the dPCSA, which controls the diaphragm and thoracic speech muscles during application of intonations to speech. Presently, I’m developing an fMRI study investigating the role of the dPCSA in whistling, and an sEEG study that identifies the frontal lobe regions associated with self-correction following hearing spectral perturbations to our own voice while speaking. As part of this lab, I also published a book chapter reviewing the neuroscience underlying phoneme perception (Poliva et al., 2024).

Adjunct Professor — California State University – Monterey Bay (CSUMB) and Santa Clara University (SCU) (2/2020-6/2023)

During the pandemic, I was employed for 2 semesters as a lecturer at the California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB) teaching upper division Biopsychology courses, and later on I was teaching Behavioral Neuroscience at Santa Clara University (SCU). Teaching neuroscience to students is a lifelong passion of mine, and I designed my own syllabus and lectures. In order to keep the material as up to date as possible, I designed the content of each class by integrating recent peer-reviewed articles with the content of current textbooks, and enriched the learned material with many illusions, activities, and in-class experiments.

Doctoral Degree in Psychology — Bangor University, United Kingdom, Psychology Dept. (2009–2015)
Mentor: Robert D. Rafal

During my Ph.D, under the mentorship of Professor Robert D. Rafal. my research focused on a unique case study of a patient, who suffered circumscribed lesions to the left inferior colliculus, and as a result developed auditory agnosia. Using MRI protocols (fMRI, DTI), I showed reduced activation in sub-regions of the patient’s auditory cortex, which we know from monkey research are involved with speech recognition (Poliva et al., 2015). Additionally, by exploring the integrity of mis-match negativity with EEG, I showed that this disability is the outcome of impaired processing of sound frequency and duration, but not amplitude (Poliva et al., 2014).

In addition to research, as an assistant teaching position, I delivered interactive brain dissection workshops under the guidance of Dr. Robert Rafal. These sessions, which supplemented undergraduate and medical programs such as “Introduction to Psychology” and “Brain and Behavior” courses involved 30-minute hands-on lessons delivered in small groups. I also led similar dissection sessions at the Visceral Mind summer program in the UK (2011–2013) and at the Kavli Summer Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (2012, 2015, 2017). An example of one of these classes can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IziBIpWisDU .

Recently, I collaborated with Dr. Robert Rafal to investigate the topography of the acoustic radiations. Using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in healthy participants alongside retrospective lesion analyses of patients with auditory agnosia, we provide evidence for a previously unrecognized auditory thalamo-cortical pathway, which we have termed the ansa acoustica. This work is currently under review at Hearing Research.

Research Assistant — Human Cognitive Neurophysiology Lab, VA Martinez (2009–2010)
Mentor: David L. Woods

As a full‐time research assistant at the VA in Martinez (www.ebire.org/hcnlab), I worked under the mentorship of Dr. David L. Woods. My primary responsibility was to program experiments using the Presentation software, as part of the development of a new diagnostic tool for the detection of brain lesions in veterans, CCAB (California Cognitive Assessment Battery). During the development of the CCAB, I took an important role in designing several of the experiments and have personally administered the test to dozens of subjects (healthy control and brain damaged Veterans).

INDEPENDENT PROJECTS

Brain Encyclopedia Atlas Project (BEAP)

As an additional project, I’m in the midst of developing the Brain Encyclopedia Atlas Project (BEAP). BEAP is an educational and research tool (www.brainatlas.online) that is freely available online. In essence, this is a neuroanatomy-neurophysiology online interactive textbook, in which by clicking on any brain area, the user is directed to a short chapter that reviews its function and connectivity. The atlas is presented on a 3D brain, which enables the reader to rotate the brain, zoom in and out of regions of interest, and activate/deactivate regions based on need. This is the first whole brain functional atlas, with over 400 regions of interest, which encompass all regions of the telencephalon (neocortex, hippocampal formation, basal forebrain, amygdalo-claustrum, hypothalamus), diencephalon (ventral, dorsal and epi-thalamus and pre-tectum), and hindbrain (medulla, pons, midbrain, cerebellum, and cervical spinal cord). The atlas can be used by educators, who teach neuroscience in university setting, and by researchers. As a research tool, all regions of interest are available in a nifti format, and thus can be used by most standard MRI analyses toolboxes. As a future project, I’m interested in developing fMRI functional localizers for each of the 110 cortical regions described in this atlas.

Neuroscience Books for Children

While working at Poliva Ltd, as a side project, I wrote a series of books for children and young adults, called “Help! There is a brain in my head” that teaches how the brain works through games, illusions, fun facts, and experiment one can perform at home (https://www.helpthereisabraininmyhead.com). So far, six books were created and published. In the near future, the content of these books will be converted into an online interactive game-like format, and integrated into the BEAP website.

Language Evolution Model

During my Ph.D, I also published a novel model of the evolution of speech, called the ‘From Where to What’ model (Poliva, 2015, 2016). In this model, based on neuroanatomical data, I argue that speech emerged from contact calls (calls used by mothers and offspring to relocate one another in cases of separation). Gradually, intonations were added to the innate calls, which enabled infants to communicate different levels of intensity. The model predicts the existence of area dPCSA, which I currently explore at IC Irvine.

PUBLICATIONS

Poliva, Oren, Christian Herrera, Kelli Sugai, Nicole Whittle, Marjorie R. Leek, Samuel Barnes, Barbara Holshouser, Alex Yi, and Jonathan H. Venezia. “Functional hearing difficulties in Veterans with blast and blunt head trauma are associated with reduced fractional anisotropy in putative auditory radiations.” Hearing Research (2025): 109387.

Poliva, Oren, Christian Herrera, Kelli Sugai, Nicole Whittle, Marjorie R. Leek, Samuel Barnes, Barbara Holshouser, Alex Yi, and Jonathan H. Venezia. “Additive effects of mild head trauma, blast exposure, and aging within white matter tracts: A novel Diffusion Tensor Imaging analysis approach.” Journal of Neuropathology & Experimental Neurology 83, no. 10 (2024): 853-869.

Poliva, Oren. “From mimicry to language: A neuroanatomically based evolutionary model of the emergence of vocal language.” Frontiers in Neuroscience 10 (2016): 307.

Poliva, Oren. “From where to what: a neuroanatomically based evolutionary model of the emergence of speech in humans.” F1000Research 4 (2017): 67.

Poliva, Oren, Patricia EG Bestelmeyer, Michelle Hall, Janet H. Bultitude, Kristin Koller, and Robert D. Rafal. “Functional mapping of the human auditory cortex: fMRI investigation of a patient with auditory agnosia from trauma to the inferior colliculus.” Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology 28, no. 3 (2015): 160-180.

Poliva, Oren. Neuroanatomical and perceptual deficits in auditory agnosia: a study of an auditory agnosia patient with inferior colliculus damage. Bangor University (United Kingdom), 2014.

Bestelmeyer, Patricia EG, Nick J. Davis, Oren Poliva, and Robert D. Rafal. “Neuromodulation of right auditory cortex selectively increases activation in speech-related brain areas in brainstem auditory agnosia.” Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology 31, no. 3 (2018): 151-155.

Woods, David L., Mark M. Kishiyama, E. William Yund, Timothy J. Herron, Ben Edwards, Oren Poliva, Robert F. Hink, and Bruce Reed. “Improving digit span assessment of short-term verbal memory.” Journal of clinical and experimental neuropsychology 33, no. 1 (2011): 101-111.

RESEARCH GRANTS

3-year research fellowship in Interprofessional Polytrauma and Traumatic Brain Injury Rehabilitationat the Office of Academic Affiliations (OAA), Veterans Affairs – Loma Linda Health Care System (VALLHCS).

BOOK CHAPTERS

Poliva, Oren, Jonathan Venezia, Christian Brodbeck, and Gregory Hickok. “Phoneme processing.” In Encyclopedia of the Human Brain, Second Edition: Volumes 1-5, pp. V2-315. Elsevier, 2024.

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS AND POSTERS

Association for Research in Otolaryngology (ARO) Mid-winter, Anaheim, CA (2024). Reduced auditory thalamo-cortical connectivity due to blast exposure in Veterans.

Acoustical Society of America, Nashville, TN (2023). Reduced auditory thalamo-cortical connectivity in Veterans with auditory deficits.

EvoLang 12, Torun, Poland (2018). From where to what: Evolutionary model of speech emergence.

Cognitive Neuroscience Society, Boston (2014). Functional organization of the human auditory fields: Activation of auditory cortex in a patient with auditory agnosia from trauma to the inferior colliculus.

Association of British Neurologists (ABN) Annual Meeting (2014). Brain stem auditory agnosia: auditory cortex activated tDCS.

Society for Neuroscience, San Diego (2013). Functional organization of the human auditory fields: Activation of auditory cortex in a patient with auditory agnosia from trauma to the inferior colliculus.

Association of British Neurologists (ABN) Annual Meeting (2012). The role of the inferior colliculus in auditory temporal resolution and categorical speech perception.

PROFESSIONAL REFERENCES

Jonathan Venezia, Ph.D. — VA Loma Linda | Jonathan.Venezia@va.gov

Gregory S. Hickok, Ph.D. — UC Irvine | gshickok@uci.edu

Mohammed Dastjerdi, M.D. — Loma Linda University | MDastjerdi@llu.edu

Robert D. Rafal, M.D. — University of Delaware  | rrafal@udel.edu