Funded Awards

Playing a game of chess, driving a car, or even reading this sentence all require that the brain retain and integrate information over short periods of time. This retaining and integration of information is accomplished by working memory.

Perceptual decision-making is a complex cognitive function critical for health, reproductive success, and survival. In this process, an informed choice based on sensory evidence is made through engagement of circuits across the brain.

Despite substantial progress characterizing neural responses, it is particularly challenging to determine causal interactions within recurrently connected circuits due to the confounding influence of the interconnections.

The overall goal of this project is to develop a reinforcement learning (RL) theory of motivation, understood here as motivational salience, and to test the conclusions of this theory using experimental observations obtained in the ventral pallidum (VP).

Abstract Recent technological advances have led to the realization recording devices that can sample neuronal activity from up to a few hundred channels in a limited area.

Neuromodulation is crucial for information processing throughout the brain. Neuromodulators influence neuronal function by acting through G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) to alter neuronal excitability and synaptic transmission, which can then affect circuit functions.

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The ability to track electrical activity in genetically defined neurons deep in the brain has long been sought by neuroscientists to unravel the functions of neuronal circuits in health and disease.

Project Summary The overall premise of this proposal is to understand how the transformation of the signals from proprioceptive afferents within muscles leads to the representation of movements in somatosensory cortex.

Brain dynamic low-frequency (

Abstract Synaptic transmission is mainly mediated by classical neurotransmitters such as glutamate and g-amino butyric acid (GABA) which transduce fast information flow in the brain. This process is tightly regulated by neuromodu- lators including monoamines and neuropeptides.

Optogenetics and chemo-optogenetics are powerful tools for modulating cell activities with light.

Neuropeptides are important signaling molecules that regulate brain states, modify neural activity and control vascular tone in the nervous system.

The initiation and maintenance of organized movement through the basal ganglia is strongly influenced by its feed-forward and feedback inhibitory architecture. The substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc) and pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN) contribute to the overall output of the basal ganglia.

Project Abstract Essential Tremor (ET) is a progressive disease that leads to significant disability and markedly diminished quality of life.

Project Summary/Abstract Speech perception is inherently multisensory: when conversing with someone that we can see, our brains combine auditory information from the voice with visual information from the face. Speech perception lies at the heart of our interactions with other people and is thus one

This proposed project focuses on quantifying the spatial and temporal diversity in cortical oxygen metabolism and neurovascular coupling, and informing next generation of biophysical models of the Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) measurements by integr

Microstimulation has been an invaluable tool for neuroscience researchers to infer functional connections between brain structures or causal links between structure and behavior.

We plan to provide software support services for Neuropixels probes, a groundbreaking new tool for recording electrical signals from the brain.

PROJECT SUMMARY Optical imaging methods are well-established in neuroscience, but high-speed, high- resolution volumetric imaging of neural activity in deep tissue remains a challenge.