Faculty Focus - Taufik Valiante

Taufik Valiante, MD, PhD, FRCSC

Dr. Valiante graduated from the MD/PhD program at the University of Toronto in 1997, with doctoral studies completed under the supervision of Dr. Peter Carlen at Toronto Western Research Institute. Dr. Valiante then pursued an epilepsy neurosurgery fellowship at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he learned Dr Ojemann's technique of language mapping for patient's undergoing epilepsy surgery. Dr. Valiante is interested in understanding the building blocks of the human brain (neurons), and the ultimate manifestation of their collective activity (oscillations to cognition – depending on the scale of investigation). He is currently the Director of the Surgical Epilepsy Program at the Krembil Neuroscience Center, Director of the Center for Advancing Neurotechnological Innovation to Application (CRANIA), a Scientist at the Krembil Research Institute, and has a cross-appointment at the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering. His neurosurgical staff appointment is at the Toronto Western Hospital, and he is currently Associate Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Toronto.

Current Appointments

• Director, Surgical Epilepsy Program, Krembil Neuroscience Centre, University Health Network
• Associate Professor of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
• Associate Professor (cross appointment), Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto
• Associate Professor (cross appointment), Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto
• Staff Neurosurgeon (Epilepsy Surgery, Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery, and Cranial Neurosurgery), Toronto Western Hospital 
• Gerry and Tootsie Halbert Chair in Neural Repair and Regeneration, University Health Network
• Member, Institute of Medical Sciences, St. George Campus, University of Toronto

Recent Selected Peer-Reviewed Funding

• National Institutes of Health. 2019 – 2024    Co- Investigator. 
  Integrating and separating information sequences in the human cerebral cortex. 
  PI: Honey, C. Co-I’s: Valiante, T.
  $1,500,000 
• Canadian Institutes of Health Research. 2017 – 2023     Principal Investigator. 
  Artificially Intelligent Neurostimulators for Drug-Resistant Epilepsy. 
  PI: Valiante, T.
  $ 1,136,025
• Collaborative Health Research Projects. 2020 – 2023    Principal Investigator. 
  Personalized contingent neurostimulation for epilepsy by machine learning in organic brain interfaces. 
  PI: Valiante, T. Co-I’s: Genov, R. 
  $375,000
• Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. 2020 – 2022
  Using precisely timed deep brain stimulation to understand human memory.
  PI: Valiante, T. Co-I’s: Katherine Duncan. 
  $250,000 

Selected Distinctions and Awards

• Wightman-Berris Individual Teaching Excellence Award, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
• H.O.P.E. Award, Epilepsy Toronto
• MD Program Teaching Award of Excellence, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
• Ross Fleming Surgical Educator Award for Excellence in Undergraduate or Postgraduate Teaching, Department of Surgery, University of Toronto, 2006

Selected Peer-Reviewed Publications

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3443-3790

• Rich S, Moradi-Chameh H, Rafiee M, Feguson K, Skinner FK, Valiante TA. Inhibitory network bistability explains increased interneuronal activity prior to seizure onset. Frontiers in Neural Circuits. 2020. 13(81): 1-22.
• Rafiee M, Patel K, Groppe DM, Andrade DM, Bercovici E, Bui E, del Camp JM, Carlen PL, Tai P, Wennberg R, Valiante TA. Daily listening to Mozart K.448 reduces seizures in individuals with epilepsy: a randomized control study. Epilepsia Open. 2020. 
• N Chandravadia, A Liang, AGP Schjetnan, A Carlson, M Faraut, JM Chung, CM Reed, B Dichter, U Maoz, SK Kalia, TA Valiante, AN Mamelak, U Ruthishauser. A NWB-based dataset and processing pipeline of human single-neuron activity during a declarative memory task. Scientific Data. 2020. 7(78): 1-12.
• Pazhouhandeh MR, Chang M, Valiante TA, Genov R (2019). Track-and-zoom neural analog-to-digital converter with blind stimulation-artifact rejection. IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits. 2020.
• A Mansouri, A Boutet, G Elias, J Germann, H Yan, H Babu, AM Lozano, TA Valiante. Lesion network mapping analysis identifies potential cause of postoperative depression in a case of cingulate low-grade glioma. World Neurosurgery. 2020. 133: 278-282.
• Katz C, Patel K, Talakoub O, Groppe D, Hoffman K, Valiante TA. Differential generation of saccade, fixation and image onset event-related potentials in the human mesial temporal lobe. Cerebral Cortex. 2020.
• Mahallati S, Bezdek JC, Popovic MR, Valiante TA. Cluster tendency assessment in neuronal spike data. Public Library of Science One. 2019. 14: 11.
• Chang M, Dufour S, Carlen PL, Valiante TA.Generation and on-demand initiation of acute ictal activity in rodent and human tissue. Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE). 2019. 143:N/A.
• Chang M, Dian JA, Dufour S, Wang L, Moradi-Chameh H, Ramani M, Zhang L, Carlen PL, Womelsdorf T, Valiante TA. Brief activation of GABAergic interneurons initiates the transition to ictal events through post-inhibitory rebound excitation. Neurobiology of Disease. Elsevier. 2018.109(A): 102-11.

Selected Professional Activities

• Director, Center for Advancing Neurotechnological Innovation to Application (CRANIA), 2017-present
• Co-Director, CRANIA:   CenteR for Advancing Neurotechnological Innovation to Application 
• Senior Scientist, Krembil Research Institute 
• Co-Director, Max Planck-University of Toronto Centre for Neural Science and Technology
• Scientist, The KITE Research Institute 
• Member, Integrated Epilepsy Care Committee, Epilepsy Ontario, 2006-present.
• Provincial Epilepsy Strategy Expert Group, Toronto, 2013-present.