ABOUT US
<Aims of our laboratory>
Animals perceive the external environment by their nervous system based on sensory inputs, and make a decision what to behave. Except for some simple reflex-movements, few studies have completely elucidated the neural mechanisms throughout all processes from the receive of stimuli to information processing and to motor control for a specific behavior. In our laboratory, we aim at a complete description of the neural circuit “from sensory input to motor output” and its computational processes, by using the escape behavior elicited by the airflow and the phonotaxis behavior induced by the conspecific calling song in the cricket.
<Research strategy>
Toward the above reserach methods, we mainly use electrophysiology and optical recording techniques (imaging). In particular, the optical imaging is a very powerful tool for visualizing the activity of the local region of single neuron and analyzing the spatiotemporal pattern of neural activity in the brain. Artificial manipulation of the environment with virtual reality (VR) and simultaneous measurements of animal's movement with a treadmill or high-speed camera are combined with these two physiological recording methods to elucidate the information processing and computational algorithm of the central nerve system. We alsol try decoding analysis of neural activities by machine learning.
NEWS & TOPICS
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