PANEL: A Team Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Understanding the Neural Circuit Dynamics Underlying Working Memory and Decision-Making

Carlos Brody did his Ph.D. in Computation and Neural Systems at Caltech, in John Hopfield's group, then did a computational postdoc in Ranulfo Romo's monkey neurophysiology lab in Mexico (which is Carlos' country of origin). After a short second postdoc at NYU with Tony Movshon, he began his first faculty position at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he led a computational group until the allure of exploring cognitive processing in rodents led him to start doing experiments. He moved to Princeton in 2007, and since 2008 has been an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His group combines high-throughput behavior, electrophysiological recordings, optogenetic perturbations, and computational modeling to understand the neural circuit mechanisms that underlie cognitive processing.

Dr. Engelhard obtained his bachelor degree from the Technion - Israel Institute of technology, Haifa, Israel. He then joined the lab of Prof. Eilon Vaadia in The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he got his PhD in computational neuroscience in 2015. During his PhD, Dr. Engelhard investigated cortical dynamics during Brain-Machine -Interface learning, as well as the relationship between oscillatory activity, single-neuron synchrony, and behavior. He moved to the Princeton Neuroscience Institute in 2015 for his post-doctoral research in the laboratories of Dr. David Tank and Dr. Ilana Witten. Dr. Engelhard is interested in the behavioral role of different subcortical neural systems, and in particular in the role of midbrain Dopamine neurons in complex behavior. He uses cell type specific, cellular-resolution deep-brain imaging techniques in mice performing a navigation-based, accumulation of evidence decision-making task.

Stephen received bachelor degrees in Biology and Physics from the University of Rochester in 2011. As an undergraduate, he worked with Alex Pouget and Ruben Moreno-Bote studying information coding in single-neuron biophysical models. He then went to the Center for Neural science at NYU to do a Ph.D. in computational neuroscience, where he worked with John Rinzel and Andre Fenton. His Ph.D. work involved using firing rate models to study competitive gamma oscillations in CA1 and the roles interneuron subtypes play in impacting gamma dynamics. In late 2016, Stephen moved to the Princeton Neuroscience Inistitute to work with Johnathan Pillow as a post-doc. He now develops latent variable models for neural population data. Recent specific projects include developing novel inference methods for Gaussian Process Factor Analytic models with count-observations, as well as extending these Gaussian Process models to analyse stimulus-locked signal information, and trial-by-trail variation in trial-based neural data.

Dr. Oostland is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow in the labs of Prof. Sam Wang at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, and Prof. Michael Brecht at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Her general research aim is to understand neuronal mechanisms underlying behavior. Specifically, she is interested in how cerebellar and neocortical networks perform and interact to transform experiences from the outside world into accurate behavioral output. She completed postgraduate training at the University of Amsterdam, which included a research project at the University of Cambridge. Before joining Brain CoGS in Princeton, she did postdoctoral research at the University of Edinburgh in the labs of Prof. Matt Nolan and Prof. Ian Duguid. Here, she performed in vivo whole-cell patch clamp recordings in awake behaving mice to study neuronal mechanisms in the olivo-cerebellar circuit guiding movement. In January 2018, Dr. Oostland joined the lab of Prof. Sam Wang at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute. She is now combining her expertise of in vivo electrophysiology with his lab's expertise in cognitive function of the cerebellum. She continues to study the neuronal computations in the cerebellum underlying the cognitive process of decision-making, using behavioral paradigms developed by the Brain CoGS team

Dr. Pinto obtained his medical degree from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, in 2006. He then did a Master's degree in physiology at the same university, where he studied visual processing in owls with Jerome Baron. Dr. Pinto got his PhD in neuroscience from the University of California, Berkeley in 2014, working in in Yang Dan's laboratory. He investigated how circuits downstream of the sensory cortex participate in perceptual decision-making. He moved to the Princeton Neuroscience Institute in 2015 for his post-doctoral research in the laboratories of Dr. David Tank and Dr. Carlos Brody. Dr. Pinto is broadly interested in neural mechanisms underlying cognition, both at the local circuit level and in terms of large-scale interactions between different brain areas. He uses a combination of recording, perturbation and computational techniques to study decision-making behavior.

After completing his undergraduate studies in Interdisciplinary Sciences with majors in theoretical physics and neuroinformatics at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, Adrian joined the labs of Prof. Dr. Richard Hahnloser, at ETH Zurich, and Prof. Dr. Tatyana Sharpee, at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, to work on new algorithms for estimating receptive fields of neurons in the visual cortex of macaque monkeys and the auditory system of zebrafinches. In the course of his doctoral work on the olfactory system of zebrafish in the lab of Prof. Dr. Rainer Friedrich at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel, Switzerland, Adrian became an expert in multiphoton calcium imaging and large-scale electron microscopy-based circuit reconstruction. In September 2017, Adrian was awarded the C.V. Starr Fellowship at Princeton University to study the neuronal basis of working memory in mice, in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Sebastian Seung and Prof. Dr. David Tank.