Kareem Amir Zaghloul, M.D., Ph.D.

Senior Investigator

Functional Neurosurgery Section, Surgical Neurology Branch (SNB)

NINDS

Building 10, Room 3D20
MSC 1065
10 Center Drive
Bethesda, MD 20814

301-594-8114

kareem.zaghloul@nih.gov

Research Topics

The Functional Neurosurgery Section is part of the Surgical Neurology Branch in the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Our lab exploits the unique investigative opportunities provided by intracranial electrical recordings during neurosurgical procedures. Using recordings captured from epilepsy patients implanted with subdural and depth electrodes, we investigate the activation of cortical networks during memory encoding and recall. And using recordings captured during implantation of deep brain stimulators, we investigate the role of the basal ganglia in learning and decision-making.

Biography

Dr. Zaghloul received his B.Sc. degree from MIT in 1995 and his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003. His graduate work focused on developing silicon models of visual processing in the mammalian retina with Dr. Kwabena Boahen. Dr. Zaghloul completed a residency in Neurological Surgery in 2010 from the University of Pennsylvania. During this time, he completed postdoctoral research with Dr. Michael Kahana, investigating the neural correlates of human memory encoding, decision, and reward. Dr. Zaghloul has completed clinical fellowships in Epilepsy Surgery and in DBS Surgery. Dr. Zaghloul joined NINDS as a Staff Clinician in 2010, and as an Investigator in 2013. He also serves as the Chief of the Surgical Neurology Branch. His laboratory is focused on investigating the neural mechanisms underlying human cognitive function.

Selected Publications

  1. Xie W, Wittig JH Jr, Chapeton JI, El-Kalliny M, Jackson SN, Inati SK, Zaghloul KA. Neuronal sequences in population bursts encode information in human cortex. Nature. 2024;635(8040):935-942.
  2. Vaz AP, Wittig JH Jr, Inati SK, Zaghloul KA. Replay of cortical spiking sequences during human memory retrieval. Science. 2020;367(6482):1131-1134.
  3. Chapeton JI, Wittig JH Jr, Inati SK, Zaghloul KA. Micro-scale functional modules in the human temporal lobe. Nat Commun. 2022;13(1):6263.
  4. Phan AT, Xie W, Chapeton JI, Inati SK, Zaghloul KA. Dynamic patterns of functional connectivity in the human brain underlie individual memory formation. Nat Commun. 2024;15(1):8969.
  5. Vaz AP, Inati SK, Brunel N, Zaghloul KA. Coupled ripple oscillations between the medial temporal lobe and neocortex retrieve human memory. Science. 2019;363(6430):975-978.

Related Scientific Focus Areas

This page was last updated on Tuesday, September 2, 2025