Research Description

Our research focuses on how the brain represents the environment and how it uses computation to generate adaptive behaviors. Specifically, we study this using temperature sensation in the vertebrate larval zebrafish as a model. Due to the optical accessibility and small size of the larval zebrafish brain we can use optical indicators of neuronal activity to observe what the animal is thinking. By combining neural activity and behavioral recordings we use machine learning techniques to develop realistic circuit models that quantitatively describe how information is processed by the brain. These models can serve as hypothesis generators for targeted mechanistical research such as electrophysiological studies or targeted neuron ablations.