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Neural Engineering Center

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 131

Examining dexterous motor control in children born with a below elbow deficiency

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2025-03-10) Joiner, Wilsaan

Dr. Wilsaan Joiner's laboratory studies how we use different sources of information to aid behavior, ranging from visual perception to movement planning and updating. Specifically, we are interested in how external and internally-generated sensory information is integrated in healthy individuals, in comparison to certain disease and impaired populations (e.g., Schizophrenia and upper extremity amputees). Achieving this understanding may lead to better methods for diagnosing and treating impairments of the nervous system.
Brain-computer interfaces for basic science

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2025-01-27) Yu, Byron

Byron Yu's research is at the intersection of neuroscience, engineering, and machine learning. He is broadly interested in how large populations of neurons process information, from encoding sensory stimuli to driving motor actions. To address basic scientific questions about brain function, his group develops and applies 1) novel statistical algorithms, such as dimensionality reduction and dynamical systems methods, and 2) brain-computer interfaces.
The role of GPCR family Mrgprs in itch, pain, and innate immunity

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2025-01-13) Dong, Xinzhong

The laboratory has taken a multidisciplinary approach to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms of different types of somatosensations including pain and itch, which are initiated and mediated by primary sensory neurons in dorsal root ganglia (DRG). We identified a novel family of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) in mice called Mrgprs. Many of these receptors are exclusively expressed in distinct subsets of small-diameter DRG neurons. Mrgprs provide the sensory biology community a great molecular tool to study various aspects of DRG sensory neuron function. Recently we found that MrgprA3 function as a receptor for chloroquine (an anti-malaria drug) and is required for chloroquine-induced itch. In addition to itch, certain Mrgs play an inhibitory role in spinal central sensitization and chronic pain. In addition to itch receptors, we found that MrgprX2 in humans and MrgprB2 in mice are exclusively expressed in mast cells (a type of innate immune cells) and play an essential role in IgE-dependent mast cell activation and mediate drug-induced pseudoallergical reactions. My lab has also generated Pirt-GCaMP mice which allow us to do in vivo DRG imaging. This powerful technique has been used by many labs to reveal novel pain mechanisms.
Towards a computational account of human visual intelligence

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2024-11-11) Murty, Naredla Apurva Ratan
Dissociating language and thought in humans and in large language models

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2024-09-23) Ivanova, Anna
Living Electrodes: Developing Optogenetic Neuronal Networks for Circuit Modeling & Biological Neural Interfaces

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2024-02-26) Adewole, Oladayo
Choose your tokens wisely: How to achieve good transfer learning on neural datasets

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2024-02-19) Richards, Blake
Themes and Variations in Animal Behavior

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2024-01-29) Berman, Gordon
The Nonlinear Population Dynamics Underlying Taste Perception and Action

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-10-30) Katz, Donald B.

We study the neural ensemble dynamics of sensori-motor processes in awake rodents, combining behavior, multi-neuronal electrophysiology, complex analysis and modeling, pharmacology and optogenetics to probe ongoing spiking activity in real-time. Our goal is to eventually move our understanding of this activity forward to the point at which it can be understood online, in single trials, and without reference to external benchmarks (stimulus onset time, for instance) that the animal doesn’t actually know. The cornerstone of our work involves examination of the neural responses to gustatory (taste) stimuli, which are unique in their reliable non-arbitrariness: a gustatory stimulus hits the tongue laden with meaning—each causes an emotional response (yum or yuck), and each causes a behavior (consumption or rejection); much of our research plumbs these processes. Furthermore, the potency of taste stimuli is such that rats quickly learn about their properties—whether they poison or nourish—and readily learn ABOUT visual and auditory stimuli that are PAIRED with them. We study these processes as well…a pursuit which has led us into some experiments that don’t involve taste at all.
Functionally Stratified Encoding in a Biological Gyroscope

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-10-02) Dickerson, Bradley H.

Flies are among nature’s most agile flying creatures. This exquisite maneuverability is due in part to their possession of specialized mechanosensory organs known as the halteres. The halteres are evolved from the hindwings and provide flies with dynamic mechanosensory feedback on a wingstroke-to-wingstroke basis. Additionally, halteres are biological “gyroscopes;” they rapidly detect rotational perturbations and help flies maintain a stable gaze and flight posture. Thus, the halteres serve as multifunctional sensory structures that provide essential timing information to the flight circuit. Halteres are covered in arrays of mechanosensors known as campaniform sensilla, that are arranged in distinct groups. Although longstanding hypotheses suggest that these different arrays may provide different information relevant to flight control, we know little about how haltere sensor location maps to physiology and behavior. I will discuss ongoing work in which we use a genetically encoded calcium indicator to visualize activity changes in the mechanosensors embedded in the haltere during active, visually mediated flight. I will also address how we are exploring the mechanisms by which mechanosensory input is recruited using reverse correlation analysis. Finally, I will cover our initial forays into connectomics and our development of an atlas describing the structure-function relationship between rapid mechanosensory feedback and motor systems.