Projects

How do animals integrate information and make decisions?

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When animals move through the environment, they constantly need to make decisions about what to do next. They integrate information from their senses, retain a working memory of such cues, and evaluate signals according to their internal state. Somehow, the nervous system effortlessly implements these computations and eventually controls behavior.

We use the larval zebrafish as a model organism to investigate the neural circuit mechanisms underlying sensory integration and decision-making. Larval zebrafish are tiny and almost perfectly transparent vertebrates. This allows us to use two-photon microscopy to observe brain activity at cellular resolution in behaving animals and to directly link circuit dynamics to individual swimming decisions.