Research

Our lab is driven by the theory of embodied cognition, which maintains that the brain and body are inseparable components of the same system - and should, therefore, be studied together. Our work formulates testable hypotheses about the role of the body and its movements in shaping sensory perception.

Venn diagram with three circles showing a tree shrew, a rat, and a brain in each section, representing the intersection of neuroscience research subjects.

Approach

How do we contextualize brain data within a moving body?

We use state-of-the-art electrophysiology and imaging techniques combined with behavioral data and mathematical modeling to place brain activity in the context of changing sensorimotor states during natural movement.

We collect data via in vivo two-photon imaging, electrophysiology, high-throughput behavioral monitoring, and sensors that record real-time external and internal inputs to the brain during natural behaviors. We use machine learning-guided behavioral analysis, computer programming, and closed-loop experimental paradigms for all aspects of our research.

Leveraging novel behavioral quantification techniques, we analyze:
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How sensorimotor inputs differ during different movement behaviors.
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How sensorimotor inputs differ during different movement behaviors.

Our techniques contextualize brain data within a changing sensorimotor experience and demands, allowing us to understand the visual system’s structure and function and how bodily constraints shape it.

Projects

We aim to understand how sensory processing in the brain, and vision in particular, integrates with the rest of the body. Our core goal is to identify principles of visual processing by studying the effects of the body’s movements on visual inputs. Engaging with these fundamental but challenging concepts will allow us to understand the brain in the context of the body it lives in, and to interrogate the many mysterious differences across the sensory systems of different species.

How do natural sensorimotor inputs differ between species with different bodies and body movements?

Evolutionary processes produce brains with circuitry optimized to natural sensory input statistics. For instance, we know that color recognition capabilities reflect the spectrum of colors in each animal’s natural habitat. This means we can find the signature of each animal’s ecological habitat in its brain because the habitat profoundly shapes the sensory inputs that the animal receives. While this environmental influence is well investigated, body movements also play a significant role in shaping sensory inputs. The next logical experiment is to look for signatures of body movements in the brain. But doing this requires getting the data first: precise measurement of natural movements, and their sensory consequence.

Our lab fills this important gap by quantifying natural movements, and their sensory consequence, in multiple species using computational modeling, programming, and neuroAI.

How does the visual system extract and use information created by body movements?

We know that movements produce sensory information useful for executing behavior. For instance, the visual flow created during walking contains information about the heading and the relative distance of nearby objects to the animal in motion. What we don't know is how the brain extracts and uses this information to guide behavior. This is because, until now, our measurements of visual circuits have largely been conducted in static brains. Using motion capture for behavioral quantification, coupled with wireless methods in electrophysiology and two-photon imaging, our lab records brain activity during natural body movements. This produces the data needed to understand how the brain incorporates body-generated information to guide behavior. Interpreting the data is the core of this project.

How does the visual system adapt to changes in bodily morphology or movement patterns?

Sensory and motor systems function together in the context of an ever-growing and changing body. This suggests that major changes in bodily morphology or movement repertoire, like those that occur during development and aging, result in different demands on the visual system. To understand this process, we simulate changes in body morphology and then ask how those changes are reflected in visual circuits and behaviors.