Our focus
The primary focus of our laboratory is to understand how the brain encodes and stores information. We employ a multidisciplinary approach, combining observational and theoretical approaches to these questions. Using state of the art laser scanning microscopy we 'film' groups of neurons in the brain in action, allowing for the investigation of functional neuronal circuits. We enhance our imaging approach with electrophysiological and anatomical methods to better understand the components of these functional neuronal circuits. These data are analyzed using advanced statistical approaches and are also used to enhance neuronal network models. We move back and forth between experiment and theory in a complementary way in order to better understand fundamental principles which govern brain function.
The circuitry of the brain
It has long been known that single neurons work as part of larger circuits but only recently have the tools, such as ours, been available to investigate large populations of neurons, with single cell resolution, at the same time. Experiments at the circuit level are essential to answering our questions because studies in which single or even a few cells are monitored fundamentally miss the emergent properties of these circuits. We hypothesize that information is both coded and stored by spatiotemporal patterns of activation within networks of neurons or circuits, groups of neurons that are synaptically interconnected and functionally related. We have recently shown that circuits exhibit stereotyped and repeated spatiotemporal patterns of activation. We suggest these emergent patterns represent an elementary functional unit of information processing in the neocortex. Our goal is to identify circuits and describe and model their spatiotemporal activation patterns. We use data from observed functional circuitry to reveal the basic circuit composition rules of the sensory cortices, the information contained in thalamically driven patterned circuit activations, and how these circuits are modified by plasticity mechanisms.
