RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGY

• Large-scale recording and manipulation of neurons in behaving animals
• Deciphering the neural computations underlying the animal’s planning and decision of upcoming behaviors

• Large-scale recording and manipulation of neurons in behaving animals

  The Ito lab performs large-scale, high-density neural recordings using tetrodes and Neuropixels probes. Electrodes are chronically implanted in targeted brain regions, allowing the simultaneous monitoring of hundreds of neurons across multiple brain areas in freely behaving animals. The lab will further combine this technique with pharmaco- and opto-genetic approaches to manipulate the activity of specific neuronal populations while recording from neurons in the same or other brain regions. This integrated approach will allow to investigate how defined patterns of neural activity contribute to specific computations in the brain.

  

• Deciphering the neural computations underlying the animal’s planning and decision of upcoming behaviors

  The Ito lab routinely acquires high-dimensional time series data from our behavioural experiments. To decipher the information embedded in these complex datasets, the lab  employs a variety of analytical techniques, including machine learning, dynamical systems analysis, topological data analysis, and computational modelling. The goal is to uncover the brain coding mechanisms that represent not only an animal’s current state but also its predicted future states, supporting our ability to make optimal behavioural decisions.