1). Cortical circuits underlying vision
2). Developing all optical recording and optogenetic technologies
3). Developing and leveraging AI models to compensate blindness with patterned brain stimulation
To understand neural circuit computations underlying vision and visual learning. To develop and apply technologies that leverage this knowledge to restore increasingly naturalistic vision in blindness.
1) Testing sufficiency of specific neural network activity patterns to generate predicted population dynamics and to modulate perceptual behavior, using precise neural activity manipulation technologies.
2) Mapping and manipulating neural circuit connectivity in vivo between specific ensembles, within and across regions with single cell resolution, at different stages of learning and executing sensory guided behavior.
3) Predicting cortical activity to natural scene vision with highly predictive AI models and patterned brain stimulation for closed loop visual compensation in models of blindness.
Biography
The Marshel Lab is dedicated to revealing how neural circuits perform computations underlying visual perception and learned sensory behavior. We employ novel neural circuit mapping and manipulation approaches to reveal and causally test the neural circuit basis of sensory computations, i.e., how specific patterns of neural activity and connectivity influence perception and learning. The long-term goals of this work are to gain a mechanistic understanding of visual perception and sensory learning that guides future treatments in sensory loss, psychiatry, and neural circuit repair.
Distinctions:
Young Investigator Award, Brain & Behavior Research Foundation
Life Sciences Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, Simons Foundation Fellow
Dean’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, Stanford University School of Medicine
Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind Innovative Research Award
Institute for Neural Computation Fellowship, University of California, San Diego
National Science Foundation Fellowship, Bridge to the Doctorate
Warner Brown Memorial Prize for Outstanding Promise in Research, UC Berkeley
