About me

Altona Tufanoglu MS, is a Research Engineer at University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine, Center for Studies of Addiction, Brain-Behavioral Vulnerabilities Laboratory in Philadelphia, PA.

He received his BS degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Izmir University of Economics in Turkiye, graduated with Cum Laude honors and received his MS degree in Biomedical Engineering within concentration in Neuro-Engineering from Drexel University, School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems in Philadelphia, PA, graduated with Magna Cum Laude honors.

He worked as a Research and Teaching Assistant at the Drexel University School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, where he was part of the Conquer Collaborative Laboratory. During this time, he contributed to several the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded projects. He also collaborated with the Drexel University Department of Psychology on studies involving neuroimaging data collection, signal processing, and quantitative data analysis. In addition, he took part in a project that received the 2021 US Army xTech Competition award.

He is currently working at the University of Pennsylvania in the Brain-Behavioral Vulnerabilities Laboratory as a Research Engineer on the United States National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)-funded and nonprofit funded projects. His responsibilities include developing, designing, and implementing computerized cognitive and neuropsychological tasks, conducting neuroimaging data collection, and performing signal processing and quantitative data analysis.

Publications

Ramirez-Chavez, K. L., Tufanoglu, A., Barreto, C., Sato, J. R., & Ayaz, H. (2024). Cognitive Effort during Visuospatial Problem Solving in Physical Real World, on Computer Screen, and in Virtual Reality. Sensors (14248220), 24(3).

Costa Macedo de Arruda, T., Sinko, L., Regier, P.,Tufanoglu, A., Curtin, A., Teitelman, A. M., … & Childress, A. R. (2025). Exploring social impairment in those with opioid use disorder: linking impulsivity, childhood trauma, and the prefrontal cortex. BMC psychiatry, 25(1), 197.

Qiu, L., Nho, Y. H., Seilheimer, R., Kim, M. J., Tufanoglu, A., Williams, N. R., … & Halpern, C. H. (2024). Localizing electrophysiologic cue-reactivity within the nucleus accumbens guides deep brain stimulation for opioid use disorder. bioRxiv, 2024-12.

Presentations

Anna Rose Childress, Altona Tufanoglu, Hasan Ayaz, Paul S. Regier:“Brain-Behavioral Vulnerabilities in Opioid Use Disorder (Part 3): Prefrontal Cortex Activity During a Decision-making Task is Linked to Deficis in Higher-order Cognition” The College on Problems of Drug Dependence (2025)

Altona Tufanoglu, Anna Rose Childress, Hasan Ayaz, Paul S. Regier: “Brain-Behavioral Vulnerabilities in Opioid Use Disorder (Part 2): Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (FNIRS) as an Effective Tool for Detecting Neural Correlates of Executive Function Deficits in Opioid Use Disorder” The College on Problems of Drug Dependence (2025)

Paul S. Regier, Altona Tufanoglu, Hasan Ayaz, Anna Rose Childress: “Brain-Behavioral Vulnerabilities in Opioid Use Disorder (Part 1): Latent Factors Underlying Opioid Use Disorder: Neurocognitive, Emotional, and Trauma-Related Challenges” The College on Problems of Drug Dependence (2025)

Younghoon Nho, Liming Qiu, Robert S. Seilheimer, Altona Tufanoglu, Bryan Wilent,David W. Oslin, Katherine W. Scangos, Anna-Rose Childress, Casey H. Halpern: “Deepbrain stimulation of the nucleus accumbens reduces cue-hyperreactivityelectrophysiological marker associated with opioid craving” Society for Neuroscience (2024)

Tufanoglu A, Curtin A, Csumitta K, Topoglu Y, Ormanoglu Z, LaQuaglia R, Miller E,Grosman H, Aragon D, Edgin J, Lee N, Ayaz H. “Prefrontal Activation in Children with and without Down Syndrome during Executive Control Tasks” 49. Northeast BioengineeringConference (2023)

Watson J, Curtin A, Topoglu Y, Tufanoglu A, Suri R, Ayaz H. “A Neuroergonomicsevaluation of e-gamer performance and expertise level” 49. Northeast BioengineeringConference (2023)

Tufanoglu A, Curtin A, Csumitta K, Topoglu Y, LaQuaglia R, Miller E, Edgin J, Lee N, AyazH.“Verbal and Spatial Working Memory Neural Correlates in Prefrontal Cortex for Typically Developing Children using fNIRS” Neuroergonomics Conference & NYCNeuromodulation (2022)