Faculty Focus - Taufik Valiante

Taufik Valiante, MD, PhD, FRCSC

Dr. Taufik A Valiante, MD PhD FRCS, is a Professor of Surgery at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, with a sub-specialization in Epilepsy Surgery. In addition to Epilepsy Surgery, he is also an expert in Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery, and Cranial Neurosurgery. Dr. Valiante holds a Senior Scientist appointment and is the Director of the Surgical Epilepsy Program at the Krembil Brain Institute at the Toronto Western Hospital, University Health Network. In addition to his role at Krembil Brain Institute, he is cross-appointed Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto. He also holds the Gerry and Tootsie Halbert Chair in Neural Repair and Regeneration.

Dr. Valiante’s vision is to build next generation devices to interrogate and modulate brain activity to cure a whole host of neuropsychiatric conditions. The goal is to one day have implantable devices with the most advanced technology that will address complex brain conditions. Dr. Valiante has also built ‘next generation’ laboratory spaces that are creating novel ecosystems bringing together in real-time basic science, clinical, and diverse scientific fields. Dr. Valiante’s research leverages access to the human brain through surgical treatment to enable Canadian first research that spans from single neuron biophysics to the collective behavior of the billions of neurons underlying human cognition. The research uses various techniques to interrogate cortical circuits including electrophysiology, behavior, optogenetics, and transcriptomics.

His efforts have been recognized by leaders nationally and internationally through supports to establish world-class infrastructures here in Toronto. He has notably established the Max Planck-University of Toronto Centre (MPUTC) for Neural Science and Technology; the Centre for Advancing Neurotechnological Innovation to Application (CRANIA); and the CRANIA Neuromodulation Institute (CNMI). These entities are driving the intersectionality of non-traditional scientific fields of medicine, engineering, and computational neuroscience working together to advance our knowledge and discovery potential that spans from the neuron to the whole brain. These centers of excellence are helping to train the next generation of scientists and leaders in Neuromodulation specialization (CNMI), building first of its kind neuromodulatory devices and interventions that will address complex brain diseases (CRANIA), and enable the pursuit of developing new physical tools and computation to explore the brain (MPUTC).

Dr. Valiante credits his success to the strong engagement of the Epilepsy Community through which this work would not be possible. Dr. Valiante strongly believes in the need for institutions to bring patient partners and communities to the table to help inform and drive research that meets their needs and is informed by what matters most to them. He has been involved in numerous community Boards and agencies, where he became acutely aware of the needs of the community, in particular, the lack of awareness and access to surgical services. Working closely with community partners, UHN and SickKids administration, he developed the chronic disease model that was the basis of the Provincial Epilepsy Strategy, which is a hub-and-spoke model of Epilepsy care in Ontario, predicated on the emerging principles of Chronic Disease Management and WHO’s Innovative Care for Chronic Disease. This has led to Ontario being the only place in the world with a regionalized approach to Epilepsy Care.

Current Appointments

Senior Scientist, Krembil Research Institute (Krembil)
Staff Neurosurgeon (Epilepsy Surgery, Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery, and Cranial Neurosurgery) at the Toronto Western Hospital
Director, Surgical Epilepsy Program, Toronto Western Hospital
Professor, Department of Surgery, University of Toronto
Professor, The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Toronto
Faculty Member, Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto
Faculty, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto
Co-Director The Max Planck-University of Toronto Centre (MPUTC) for Neural Science and Technology
Co-Director, CRANIA (Center for Advancing Neurotechnological Innovation to Application)
Director, CRANIA Neuromodulation Institute, University of Toronto
Senior Scientist, The KITE Research Institute

Recent Selected Peer-Reviewed Funding

The Hilary and Galen Weston Foundation. 2023-2026. Principal Investigator. MUSIC (Mathematical UnderpinningS of the Influence of Cadence (MUSIC)) on Brain Health and Parkinson's Disease.
PI: Valiante.
$3,156,104
Alzheimer Society of Canada (ASC) & Brain Canada Foundation. 2024-2027. Principal Investigator. DBS-PPN-AD: A Pilot Clinical Trial Investigating Deep Brain Stimulation of the Pedunculopontine Nucleus for the Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease.
PI: Valiante. Co-I's: Tarek Rajji, Hamed Azami, Ahmad Elsawy.
$100,000
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 Peer-Reviewed Publications

Hutt, Axel, Scott Rich, Taufik A. Valiante, and Jérémie Lefebvre. 2023. “Intrinsic Neural Diversity Quenches the Dynamic Volatility of Neural Networks.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 120 (28): e2218841120.
Rich, Scott, Homeira Moradi Chameh, Jeremie Lefebvre, and Taufik A. Valiante. 2022. “Loss of Neuronal Heterogeneity in Epileptogenic Human Tissue Impairs Network Resilience to Sudden Changes in Synchrony.” Cell Reports 39 (8): 110863.
Chameh, Homeira Moradi, Scott Rich, Lihua Wang, Fu-Der Chen, Liang Zhang, Peter L. Carlen, Shreejoy J. Tripathy, and Taufik A. Valiante. 2021. “Diversity amongst Human Cortical Pyramidal Neurons Revealed via Their Sag Currents and Frequency Preferences.” Nature Communications 12. https://doi.org/10.1101/748988.
Chaim N. Katz, Andrea G.P. Schjetnan, Kramay Patel, Victoria Barkley, Kari Hoffman, Suneil K. Kalia, Katherine Duncan, Taufik A. Valiante. A corollary discharge mediates saccade related inhibition of single units in mnemonic structures of the human brain. Current Biology. 2021 July 12. http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.12.450085 10.83.
Moradi Chameh, Homeira, Madeleine Falby, Mandana Movahed, Keon Arbabi, Scott Rich, Liang Zhang, Jérémie Lefebvre, Shreejoy Tripathy, Maurizio de Pitta, and Taufik Valiante. n.d. “Distinctive Biophysical Features of Human Pyramidal Cell-Types: Insights from Studies of Neurosurgically Resected Brain Tissue.” Frontiers in Synaptic Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnsyn.2023.1250834.
McGinn, Ryan J., and Taufik A. Valiante. 2014. “Phase-Amplitude Coupling and Interlaminar Synchrony Are Correlated in Human Neocortex.” The Journal of Neuroscience: The Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience 34 (48): 15923–30.
Florez, C. M., R. J. McGinn, V. Lukankin, I. Marwa, S. Sugumar, J. Dian, L. N. Hazrati, P. L. Carlen, L. Zhang, and T. A. Valiante. 2015. “In Vitro Recordings of Human Neocortical Oscillations.” Cerebral Cortex 25 (3): 578–97.