Sensory coding from a behavioral perspective
Abstract: Sensory stimuli evoke rich spatiotemporal neural patterns. A central question of my work is which features of those patterns drive behavior. Using the mammalian olfactory system, we pair multi-level neural recordings with targeted perturbations. Behavioral responses to parametrically defined optogenetic activation show that early responses carry far more behaviorally relevant information than later ones. […]
Cell-type specific voltage imaging of neural spiking, oscillations, waves, and memory dynamics
Abstract: Fluorescent genetically encoded voltage-indicators report the membrane voltages of targeted cell-types. Recent advances in the development of these indicators have enabled optical voltage-imaging experiments capturing the spiking dynamics of up to 3 neuron classes at once in the brains of behaving mammals. We recently used this capability to uncover a new form of interaction between an […]
Chemosensory Processing of Social Information
Compensation of Epileptogenic Dynamics using Simulation-Based Inference from Spiking Microcircuit Models
Abstract: Spiking microcircuit models simulate neurons, action potentials, and synaptic transmission to reproduce healthy or pathological brain dynamics. These detailed models offer potential for personalized treatments of brain disorders, but identifying parameters that reproduce patient data in biologically detailed models remains challenging. We apply neural posterior estimation, a modern simulation-based inference method, to efficiently estimate […]
Neural computations underlying the regulation of motivated behavior
Abstract: As we interact with the world around us, we experience a constant stream of sensory inputs, and must generate a constant stream of behavioral actions. What makes brains more than simple input-output machines is their capacity to integrate sensory inputs with an animal’s own internal motivational state to produce behavior that is flexible and adaptive. […]