In 2009, I received my PhD in Neurobiology from Duke University.
My fascination by the brain and how it works started by observing my mom's work with aphasic patients who could not communicate well. Aphasia typically occurs after a stroke or a head injury. I started working in a neuroscience lab during my first year of college, in Brazil. I initially studied the visual cortex and later focused on the somatosensory cortex, which process information such as touch, temperature, and pain. In grad school, I studied processing of tactile information, reward, sleep and whatnot.