Research Focus

The nervous system continuously monitors the environment and produces overt or covert orienting behavior in response to relevant sensory stimulation. Research in the lab investigates neural mechanisms involved in the multiple facets of sensory-to-motor transformations, including cognitive processes. Some specific topics explored in the lab include:

  • Dynamics of population activity for sensory-to-motor transformations
  • Brain-computer interface framework to decipher the "language of the brain"
  • Visual cortical prosthesis
  • Interception of moving stimulus
  • Premotor theory of attention
  • Cortical control of eye and head movements

These themes are addressed using both experimental (extracellular recording, microstimulation, chemical microinjections) and computational tools. An understanding of the sensory, cognitive and motoric processes that produce integrated orienting behavior has diagnostic value for deficits resulting from neuropsychiatric disorders, vision loss, and ocular dysmotility.