Description: Neural Circuits and Behavior. Genetic and imaging approaches to neural circuits and behavior
Burgess Lab Neural Circuits and Behavior Research Tools Team Updates Contact How does the brain select appropriate behavior when faced with a constantly changing environment and fluctuating internal goals? And how is this process disrupted in neurodevelopmental disorders, like autism and schizophrenia? To answer these questions, we study neural circuits that integrate sensory processing with behavioral state, using the power of the optically transparent zebrafish larva.
Our Research
Our previous work has uncovered all sorts of unexpected phenomena in zebrafish larvae: light reception by deep brain photoreceptors, the neural basis for fear-paralysis, and a neuronal substrate for asymmetric motor behaviors, similar to human handedness. We use a mix of genetics, behavioral analysis, functional imaging and computational methods to tackle these questions.