Research in our lab focuses on the mechanisms and dynamics underlying long-term memory under both normal and pathological conditions. We are specifically interested in how memory information is coded in the brain, and about what happens, from the neural code’s perspective, to information “stored” in the brain over timescales that range from days to months:
- How do memory representations evolve as a function of time and experience?
- How do neuropsychiatric and degenerative disorders alter memory representations?
- How do plasticity mechanisms, such as adult neurogenesis, contribute to processing of memory information?
We investigate how memory information is coded by large neuronal populations in brain circuits that are important for memory processing. We do that by combining novel in-vivo optical imaging methodologies for longitudinal recordings of neuronal activity in freely behaving rodents, with genetic tools for manipulating specific molecular pathways or spiking activity in specific cell types, and behavioral assays of learning and long-term memory. [read more]