I am currently a PhD candidate in the Biological Sciences Program at UCSD, where I am fortunate to work with Prof. Marcus Benna. I received my MSc in Systems Biology at Maastricht University. I completed my master thesis on computational neuroscience working in the lab of Stefano Fusi at Columbia University.
My research is on how populations of neurons encode information within ethological contexts. Specifically, I am interested in how changes within an animal's internal state lead to changes within its neural representations and how these representations evolve over time. For instance, how chronic mild stress can induce depression.
The property of mixed selectivity has been discussed at a computational level and offers a strategy to maximize computational power by adding versatility to the functional role of each neuron. Here, we offer a biologically grounded implementational-level mechanistic explanation for mixed selectivity in neural circuits.
Upcoming..
Here, we present the amygdalostriatal transition zone (ASt) as a missing piece of a highly conserved process of paramount importance for survival, which represents an internal state (e.g. fear) that can be expressed in multiple motor outputs (e.g. freezing or escape). From in vivo cellular resolution recordings that include both electrophysiology and calcium imaging, we find that ASt neurons are sparse coding, extremely high signal-to-noise, and maintain a sustained response for negative valence stimuli for the duration of the defensive behavior.
Read more →How do social factors impact the brain and contribute to increased alcohol drinking? We found that social rank predicts alcohol drinking, where subordinates drink more than dominants. Furthermore, social isolation escalates alcohol drinking, particularly impacting subordinates who display a greater increase in alcohol drinking compared to dominants.
Read more →Most social species self-organize into dominance hierarchies, which decreases aggression and conserves energy, but it is not clear how individuals know their social rank. We have only begun to learn how the brain represents social rank, and guides behavior on the basis of this representation. The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is involved in social dominance in rodents, and humans. Yet, precisely how the mPFC encodes relative social rank and which circuits mediate this computation is not known.
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