Research focus

​Understanding how the sensory world is represented in the brain and how these representations generate behaviors that are essential to the life of an organism is the fundamental challenge of sensory neuroscience. The activity of single neurons and the function of synapses have been investigated in great detail. Yet, information processing at the level of the neural circuits is less well understood.

Our long term goals are to understand:

• how neural circuits process sensory information
• how the components of neural circuits interact with each other
• how sensory information is stored and recalled in the process of learning and memory
• how neural circuits develop

The main goal of our lab is to understand the fundamental principles underlying the function and development of neural circuits in a genetically tractable model organism, such as zebrafish. In order to accomplish these goals we will exploit chemosensory systems. Among the sensory systems, chemosensation is the least studied. Substantial amount of work was done to understand the chemosensory coding in the level of receptor neurons. However, little is known about the chemosensory information processing in the higher brain areas.

In order to monitor, dissect and perturb the neural circuits of the adult and larval zebrafish brain, we will use: two-photon and widefield microscopy, optogenetics, electrophysiological recordings, molecular genetics and behavioral assays.

Ultimately, these experiments will help us to understand the fundamental principles of sensory information processing in the brains of vertebrates, including humans.