Long Range Circuit Motifs
A population of cells retrogradely labeled by injection of rabies virus
About the Lab
Our research focuses on brain states and multimodal integration across corticothalamic circuits. Information processing in the brain varies between brain states like sleep and wakefulness, and also more subtly between attention and inattention. When we are driving a car for example, and our attention shifts from the scene in front of us to the song on the radio, the processing of auditory and visual information can change dramatically without any anatomical rewiring of circuits in the brain. We study the mechanisms underlying the differential gating and routing of information in multiple sensory areas during these brain state changes. To address this difficult problem we record and manipulate activity in awake mice using cutting-edge techniques like targeted in vivo whole-cell patching, advanced multiphoton calcium imaging, optogenetics, and viral techniques.
Multiphoton Calcium and Voltage Imaging
A 2P-RAM mesoscope allows us to image functional activity with sub-cellular resolution across multiple cortical areas.
Functional Specialization of Cortical Interneurons
Two-photon targeted patching of a somatostatin-positive Martinotti interneuron in an awake animal.
Circuit Mechanisms Underlying Brain State Fluctuations in Mice
Like humans, small fluctuations in the size of the pupil track internal brain state in the mouse.
Large-Scale Functional Connectomics of Visual Cortex (MICrONS)
A 3D reconstruction of a single functionally-imaged L2/3 pyramidal cell in mouse visual cortex. In collaboration with AIBS and Princeton, in the next year we will have access to the full local circuit diagram of more than 70,000 functionally-characterized and EM-reconstructed cells from the mouse visual cortex.
