Mario Dipoppa, M.D.

Mario Dipoppa is an assistant professor of computational neuroscience in the Department of Neurobiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He seeks to understand the neural mechanisms underlying cortical brain functions. He obtained his Ph.D. from Pierre and Marie Curie University, where he developed neural circuit models of working memory under the guidance of Boris Gutkin. He then undertook postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Kenneth Harris and Matteo Carandini at University College London (UCL), where he was a recipient of the Marie Curie Fellowship.

As a postdoctoral fellow, Dipoppa combined large-scale neural recordings with computational models to study the mouse visual system. He later served as an associate research scientist at the Center for Theoretical Neuroscience at Columbia University under the mentorship of Ken Miller, where he integrated deep learning with dynamical systems methods to investigate fundamental properties of visual computation.

Dipoppa’s Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience Laboratory continues to investigate how neural networks and dynamics in the cerebral cortex and interconnected subcortical structures give rise to neural computations. Across humans and other animal species, age-dependent changes have been observed at the level of neuroanatomy, neural dynamics, cognition, and behavior. As an SCPAB investigator, one of Dipoppa’s current focuses is to develop theoretical frameworks to understand how these age-dependent changes are causally interconnected. To address these questions, Dipoppa’s laboratory combines biologically realistic neural circuit models, artificial neural networks, and analyses of the neural code.

Projects:

• Brain specific thyroid hormone dysfunction drives age related cognitive changes
• Movement and cognition as a window on the lifespan