Top Neuroscience Researchers at York University for 2026

York University’s recent neuroscience output shows a broad mix of work on attention, vision, movement, and how people perceive and respond to their surroundings. Across the last year, researchers have explored topics that connect cognitive neuroscience with social behavior, rehabilitation, media technology, and brain-based models of perception.

Below, you’ll find a snapshot of the people contributing most actively to this area, along with a sense of the themes that are shaping research at York University right now.

Featured Researchers

Erez Freud

Erez Freud at York University has been focusing on cognitive neuroscience and social psychology, with recent work on attention, autism classification, and lesion-network mapping.

Activity over the last year: 10 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• Perceived depth modulates allocation of attention (Mar 2025)
• Effective Autism Classification Through Grasping Kinematics (May 2025)
• Lesion-network mapping in task-dependent frequencies uncovers remote consequences of focal damage (Jan 2025)

Taylor W. Cleworth

Taylor W. Cleworth at York University is working across physical therapy, neurology, and cognitive neuroscience, especially on visual feedback, balance, and postural control.

Activity over the last year: 5 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• The Effects of Delayed Visual Feedback on Dynamic Postural Control (Jun 2025)
• Exploring the role of reduced optic flow in dynamic balance (Feb 2025)
• Nonlinear analysis of the effects of vision and postural threat on upright stance (Jul 2025)

Laurie M. Wilcox

Laurie M. Wilcox at York University combines cognitive neuroscience with media technology and epidemiology in studies of depth perception, lightness constancy, and face processing.

Activity over the last year: 8 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• Perceived depth modulates allocation of attention (Mar 2025)
• An equivalent illuminant analysis of lightness constancy with physical objects and in virtual reality (May 2025)
• Minimal effects of stereopsis on processing realistic faces (Jul 2025)

Robert S. Allison

Robert S. Allison at York University is publishing on cognitive neuroscience, human-computer interaction, and media technology, with recent studies on cybersickness, vestibular adaptation, and stance.

Activity over the last year: 7 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• Nonlinear analysis of the effects of vision and postural threat on upright stance (Jul 2025)
• “Differences in Virtual and Physical Head Pose” Predict Cybersickness When Naturalistic Head-Movements are Made in VR (May 2025)
• Stationarity perception depends on vestibular-oculomotor adaptation (Jul 2025)

Cindel White

Cindel White at York University is bringing cognitive neuroscience and social psychology together in work on karma, justice, and generosity.

Activity over the last year: 4 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• Third-party punishment, vigilante justice, or karma? Understanding the dynamics of interpersonal and cosmic justice (May 2025)
• How Karma Harms and Helps Generosity Toward Those in Need (Feb 2025)
• Belief in karma: how beliefs about moral causality shape social behavior (Oct 2025)

Peter J. Kohler

Peter J. Kohler at York University is centered on cognitive neuroscience, with recent publications on attention, visual search, and visuomotor processing after cortical damage.

Activity over the last year: 6 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• Hemifield Specificity of Attention Response Functions during Multiple-Object Tracking (Mar 2025)
• Visual search efficiency is modulated by symmetry type and texture regularity (May 2025)
• Reweighting of visuomotor areas during motor processing subsequent to somatosensory cortical damage (Jun 2025)

Kohitij Kar

Kohitij Kar at York University is working at the intersection of cognitive neuroscience, neurology, and computer vision, with studies on brain models of vision and object recognition.

Activity over the last year: 4 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• How to optimize neuroscience data utilization and experiment design for advancing brain models of visual and linguistic cognition? (Jan 2025)
• Dynamic Object Processing in Macaque IT Cortex: Temporal Dynamics and Model Limitations (Jul 2025)
• Probing the Neural Basis of Visual Abstraction: Macaques and ANN Models Achieve Similar Sketch Recognition Performance (Jul 2025)

Jonathan A. Michaels

Jonathan A. Michaels at York University is publishing across cognitive neuroscience, biomedical engineering, and cellular and molecular neuroscience, with recent work on motor circuits, muscle learning, and hand tracking.

Activity over the last year: 5 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• Sensory expectations shape neural population dynamics in motor circuits (Oct 2025)
• A paradigm to study the learning of muscle activity patterns outside of the natural repertoire (Jun 2025)
• ATHENA: automatically tracking hands expertly with no annotations (Nov 2025)

What York University's Neuroscience Community Is Working On

The most common thread across York University’s recent neuroscience work is cognitive neuroscience, which appears to anchor a wide range of studies on attention, perception, movement, and brain-behavior relationships. Around that core, researchers are also active in social psychology, neurology, media technology, and rehabilitation, suggesting a community that is not only studying how the brain works, but also how perception and action play out in virtual environments, clinical contexts, and everyday social decisions.

• Cognitive Neuroscience - seen across 8 of the featured researchers
• Social Psychology - seen across 2 of the featured researchers
• Neurology - seen across 2 of the featured researchers
• Media Technology - seen across 2 of the featured researchers
• Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation - seen across 1 of the featured researchers

These recent publications show a neuroscience community working across perception, motor control, social cognition, and technology-rich environments. If you want to keep track of similar research streams, or organize your own manuscript and submission workflow more efficiently, Resub can help support the process from discovery to final formatting.

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