About the Lab

Our lab is part of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and located at the Janelia Farm Research Campus, a unique, world-class research community in Ashburn, VA. Over the next five years, Janelia Farm Research Campus (JFRC) will grow to over 400 employees, to include top scientists, physicists, engineers and operations staff.

Our Research

We begin with the hypothesis that the unique biophysical properties of individual neurons endow circuits in the brain with distinct computational properties. From this perspective, our work is focused on understanding how the biophysical properties of individual neurons in the mammalian basal ganglia perform the sensorimotor integration necessary for reinforcement learning and the execution of volitional actions. It is our expectation that this work will shed light on the underlying biological dysfunction found in pathological disruptions of volitional action and learning found in Parkinson's disease and addiction. We use an array of electrophysiological and imaging techniques to study individual neurons and small circuits of neurons both in vitro and in awake-behaving animals.