Dr. Cian McCafferty is a lecturer and principal investigator at University College Cork, working in the department of Anatomy & Neuroscience and as faculty in APC Microbiome Ireland. He graduated from UCC with a B.Sc. (Hons) in Neuroscience in 2010, and from Cardiff University with a Ph.D. in experimental electrophysiology of epilepsy in 2014. For his doctoral research, Dr. McCafferty investigated the activity of thalamic neurons during absence seizures in a rat model, and the contributions of thalamic T-type calcium channels to the electrographical and behavioural components of the seizures. After a year of postdoctoral research in Cardiff University, Dr. McCafferty pursued an Epilepsy Foundation postdoctoral fellowship in Yale University. He expanded this initial fellowship into 4 years of postdoctoral research at Yale into neuronal and network mechanism of absence seizure behavioural severity, researching the hemodynamic and electrophysiological changes in the cerebral cortex associated with the behavioural severity of experimental absence seizures. Dr. McCafferty's current research at UCC and APC Microbiome Ireland focuses on the patterns of neuronal and network activity that determine behaviour, with a particular interest in those mechanisms that mediate the influence of the gut microbiome on anxiety, mood and cognition.

Dr. McCafferty's research interests all relate to the determination of behaviour and experience by the activity of individual neurons and functional networks: Absence epilepsy: the study of how relevant neurons and networks initiate brain state-changes from normal to seizing; how the component neuronal populations of functional circuits interact to create paroxysmal seizure oscillations; how sensory input, cognitive processing and motor output are impaired during seizure, leading to overall impaired behaviour; how patterns of neuronal activity are related to and determine the degree of behavioural impairment during a seizure; how the relationship between neuronal activity and hemodynamics evolves during the time around and during an absence seizure. Microbiome-gut-brain axis: how neuronal and network activity is changed downstream of alterations to the microbiome, both positive and negative; how these changes in brain activity go on to determine changes in the experience and behaviour of people with disorders of mood, anxiety and cognition.

Dr. McCafferty is interested in the application of backward design and active learning principles to achieve goal-oriented learning: the identification of students' goals and desired post-education activities, and the construction of teaching and learning materials and methods to best bring students towards those goals. His teaching in the Neuroscience (CK402) and Medical and Health Sciences (CK707) programs aims to equip students to apply broad scientific principles to their lives and careers, focusing on the interpretation of scientific data in its various forms as well as the design of experiments to address outstanding scientific questions and the effective presentation of the ensuing data. Dr. McCafferty also teaches Neuroscience students in his specific areas of research interest, including epilepsy, consciousness, and awareness.