Funded Work

The adaptive value of cognition manifests in decisions not only about how to act but also about when to act.

Speech is a highly sophisticated, uniquely human behavior.

Prediction of the future and mental simulation of experiences are key to many forms of cognition and sensory processing.

The ability to make decisions lies at the core of cognition, but much remains unknown about its underlying neural mechanisms.

Learning a complex motor skill like playing tennis or a music instrument requires changes in connections between many neurons in the brain.

Behaviors are known to arise from numerous neurons communicating with each other within and across brain areas.

Movement is the primary way animals interact with the world.

Humans and other animals can rapidly solve new problems — such as imitating a dance from a single observation — by adaptively combining components from prior knowledge to generate new …

Individuals vary widely in the types of behavioral transitions they undergo in response to adverse environmental conditions.

Communication is a fundamental aspect of life among animals, and yet we lack a comprehensive understanding of the underlying neural mechanisms.

Songbirds produce a complex, learned sequential behavior that shares features with the most intriguing human behaviors, such as speech, musical performance and even thinking and planning.

Some of our most complex behavior, such as speaking, swimming or playing the piano, can be understood by breaking the behavior down into a sequential succession of learning …

The human brain is a daunting object: It contains nearly 100 billion neurons, each one linked to roughly 10,000 other neurons, making 100 trillion total connections in …

Our brains are able to store information about the world for several seconds after it was acquired, for example the shape and identity of an animal that disappeared …

Imagine a tennis player hitting a forehand, but in slow-motion: There is anticipatory footwork, alignment of the body, preparation of the racquet, the wind-up and swing …

Context matters when making a decision.

When deciding whether to eat an apple, you might focus on its color, firmness and smell.

Loosely speaking, we all have two brains.

The brain has a remarkable ability to choose appropriate actions in the face of an ever-changing environment.

Animals often move in response to the senses.

The brain of any animal has to operate on multiple timescales at once.

In the last few years, powerful experimental techniques that can monitor the activity of many neurons at once have generated a new field of neuroscience — ‘neural dynamics’ — which …

A central goal of neuroscience is to decode the brain activity responsible for decisions and actions.

Some visual patterns can be seen in more than one way, like the famous Necker cube which reverses its 3D orientation spontaneously.

Every time we open our eyes, we take in far too much visual information for our brains to fully process.

Our group is helping Rafael Yuste’s lab to pioneer the use of Hydra vulgaris, a small, freshwater polyp that attaches itself to underwater surfaces in lakes, rivers …

Working memory, the ability to temporarily hold and manipulate pieces of information in our minds, is crucial for thinking and flexible behavior.

We take it for granted that we can distinguish similar events yet still group them together as being similar.

Imagine you are rowing a boat in a river.

The human brain is composed of billions of neurons.

Our interaction with the world is influenced by our internal state.

We’ve all experienced a sense of familiarity—that vague sense that we’ve met someone, been in a room, or seen a movie before—even if we …

How the human brain’s nearly 100 billion neurons interact with each other to give rise to cognition, emotion, and action is a total mystery.

While we may take for granted social tasks such as inferring what others are thinking and feeling, or predicting someone’s next move, they pose considerable processing challenges …

The ability of the human brain to form a complex memory of an event experienced just a single time is astounding—and that memory can be stored and …

In the human brain, billions of neurons wired into networks sense the environment; process, store, and retrieve information; and produce thoughts and behavior.

When we perceive a face, we see multiple aspects, such as its location in space, its overall 3-D shape, and the color of the lips and eyes.

How does the activity of neurons give rise to cognitive phenomena such as short-term memory or decision-making?

Neural networks in the brain have their own intrinsic activity independent of incoming sensory stimuli.

Neural pathways are composed of hundreds, thousands, or millions of neurons.

The human brain is composed of billions of neurons.

The behavioral repertoire of any animal is ultimately determined by the activity of its brain cells.

The activity of neurons in the brain represents external sensory stimuli, internal cognitive states, and plans for upcoming motor behavior.

The cerebral cortex—the outermost, wrinkled layer of our brains—contains a variety of brain areas that are connected to form neural networks.

It is well established that multiple brain areas are involved in generating movements, yet individual brain areas are often studied in isolation.

In general, our actions are not mere reflexes in response to external stimuli.

We all know that our thoughts change from moment to moment.

Imagine an autumn day.