Biography
NEURAL DYNAMICS: THE NEURAL BASIS OF LEARNING AND MEMORY AND TEMPORAL PROCESSING Behavior and cognition are not the product of isolated neurons, but rather emerge from the dynamics of interconnected neurons embedded in complex recurrent networks. Significant progress has been made towards understanding cellular and synaptic properties in isolation, as well as in establishing which areas of the brain are active during specific tasks. However, elucidating how the activity of hundreds of thousands of neurons within local cortical circuits underlie computations remains an elusive and fundamental goal in neuroscience. The primary goal of my laboratory is to understand how functional computations emerge from networks of neurons. One computation we are particularly interested in is how the brain tells time. Temporal processing refers to your ability to distinguish the interval and duration of sensory stimuli, and is a fundamental component of speech and music perception. To answer these questions the main approaches in my laboratory involve: (1) In Vitro Electrophysiology: Using acute and chronic brain slices we study the spatio-temporal dynamics of cortical circuits, as well as the learning rules that allow networks to develop, organize and perform computations ??? that is, to learn. (2) Computer Simulations: Computer models are used to simulate how networks perform computations, as well as test and generate predictions in parallel with our experimental research. (3) Human Psychophysics: We also use human pyschophysical experiments to characterize learning and generalization of temporal tasks, such as interval discrimination.
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Biography
Michael S. Fanselow is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at U.C.L.A. and has held academic appointments at Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute and Dartmouth College before coming to UCLA in 1987. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington and received the Edwin B Newman Award for Excellence in Research for his dissertation work there. He has also received the Early Career Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award and the D. O. Hebb Award from the American Psychological Association and the Troland Award from the National Academy of Science. He was elected President of the American Psychological Association’s Division of Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology and President of the Pavlovian Society. He currently holds positions as the Staglin Family Chair and the Director of the Staglin Music Festival Center for Brain & Behavioral Health.