Blog | Sainsbury Wellcome Centre

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Visual circuits for action – an evolutionary perspective

Your ability to play chess, drive a car, or even just read this article, all depends on your brain’s capacity to link perception with action. In this Q&A, Dr Sarah Ruediger explains her strive to understand the structure and function of the neural circuits that give rise to an animal’s ability to use sensory information to implement purposeful actions.

Diagram of Neuropixels 2.0

Developing Neuropixels 2.0 to stably track neurons over months

Described in a new paper published in Science, the new Neuropixels 2.0 probes build upon the success of the original Neuropixels probes to improve stability, among other features, so that recordings of the same neurons can be performed over longer time periods in small animals.

Widefield calcium responses across dorsal cortex in mice

Decision-making using uncertain sensory evidence and temporal expectation

Researchers at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre explored decision-making in mice using a novel behavioural framework and widefield calcium imaging across dorsal cortex to elucidate how sensory evidence gets transformed across multiple brain areas simultaneously.

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Learning and forgetting in primary olfactory cortex

How does the brain learn about odours and how often are these memories overwritten? In this Q&A, Dr Carl Schoonover and Dr Andrew Fink, who recently gave the final lecture in our 2020 Emerging Neuroscientists Seminar Series, outline their research on learning and forgetting in primary olfactory cortex.

Brain visualisation using brainrender

Brainrender: visualising brain data in 3D

Federico Claudi, PhD student in the Branco Lab, and team at SWC, have developed an open-source Python package called brainrender, which enables interactive 3D visualisation of anatomical data and allows neuroscientists to gain a more intuitive understanding of brain structures.

Mouse running in virtual reality

Does the brain recycle mechanisms for learning and attention?

Learning and attention have a similar purpose: to allow the brain to improve behavioural performance. Yet we don’t know whether the brain implements these processes in the same way. Researchers at SWC are working to uncover how often the brain recycles underlying mechanisms for processes with similar functions, such as learning and attention.

Journeys in Neuroscience

Pursuing a PhD in neuroscience

Nicole Vissers, PhD student in the Hofer Lab at SWC, shares her journey in science so far and her advice to those interested in pursuing a PhD in neuroscience.

Nose smelling flower

Cortical circuits for olfactory behaviour

There seems to be a particularly privileged relationship between olfaction and spatial memory. Despite this, we know very little about higher order olfactory functions and behaviour. In this Q&A, Dr Cindy Poo, who recently gave a virtual SWC seminar, outlines her research on cortical circuits for olfactory behaviour.

Presynaptic partners of primary visual cortical neurons extending to secondary visual and retrosplenial cortical regions

Unravelling long-range connections in the brain

If you’d asked a neuroscientist 30 years ago – what does the visual cortex do? – the answer would have been it processes information from the eyes. But we now know it’s not that simple.

Brain slice - GRP expression (left) different cell markers (right)

Uncovering the neural basis of fear memories

Following her SWC Virtual Seminar, Dr Sarah Melzer, Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University, outlines her research to uncover the neural basis of fear memories.

16 February 2021

Angular head velocity recordings

How does the brain accurately represent self-motion during navigation?

When was the last time you moved around the room? And when did you last think about how your brain enables you to do this? Sepiedeh Keshavarzi, Senior Research Fellow in the Margrie Lab, et al. explored how mice accurately represent self-motion during navigation.

4 February 2021

Robot

Equipping artificial intelligence with motivation

We know that algorithms can be exceptional at solving individual tasks when given specific goals, such as winning a game of chess, but one thing they currently lack is intrinsic motivation.

20 January 2021