Current Research and Scholarly Interests
We study neural mechanisms of visual-motor integration and the neural basis of perception and cognition (e.g. attention). For example, we study the activity of single neurons in visual and motor structures within the brain, examine how perturbing that activity affects neurons in other brain structures, and also how it affects the perceptual and motor performance of behaving animals. Questions currently addressed by our group include:
(1) How are signals conveyed by visual cortical neurons used to guide movements?
(2) How does motor feedback affect processing in sensory cortex?
(3) What is the impact of planned movements on sensory perception?
(4) What are the neural circuit-level mechanisms underlying executive functions, e.g. attention and working memory?
Our laboratory is also driven to develop more powerful approaches to systems-level neurobiological questions (e.g. large-scale electrophysiological recordings).
