2022 NS&B Students

I’m a new postdoc in the lab of Gilles Laurent at the Max Planck Institute of Brain Research in Frankfurt/Germany. I plan to study functional homeostasis in the lizard brain, to understand how this poikilothermic brain maintains cognitive computations across a wide range of environmental temperatures. For my PhD in the lab of Hopi Hoekstra at Harvard University, I studied the neural basis of defensive behavior evolution in closely related, but ecologically distinct species of deer mice (Peromyscus).

I'm finishing my PhD in the W. Smith lab at UC Santa Barbara studying neural circuit motifs and behavior in the basal chordate Ciona tadpole larvae. My project focuses on the sensory processing mechanisms involved in the dual visuomotor pathway of the larvae to better understand the dynamics of the circuit computations through synaptic transmissions.

I'm an Electrical Engineer with a PhD in Neuroscience, working at Universidad de la República, Uruguay. By using patch-clamp and computational modeling, I study the mechanisms behind the induction and expression of the plasticity of the electrical synaptic transmission, in mice and rats.

I am a PhD student at Duke University in the Naumann lab studying how neurons connect across different brain regions in larval zebrafish. I’m specifically interested in understanding the functional circuitry of visually responsive cells in the midbrain/hindbrain region, using direct neural stimulation and behavioral assays.

I am a PhD-Student in the lab of Alexander Borst at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology near Munich, Germany. There, I am studying the development of the first motion sensing neurons in Drosophila. Our goal is to understand how dendrites can sense their local environment and grow from a single neurite into the shape necessary for reaching all their presynaptic inputs.

I'm a PhD student in the Tosches Lab at Columbia University, studying the evolution of the vertebrate telencephalon and its cell types. Using salamanders as my research organism, I am interested in understanding how conserved neuron types contribute to learning and memory in the amphibian hippocampal-entorhinal circuit.

I am a Ph.D. student in the Moss lab at Johns Hopkins University. After spending the bulk of my undergraduate years exploring the sensory biology of bats, moths, and crickets, I recently crossed the sea to explore the neural mechanisms of behavior. My project focuses on understanding how rapid shifts in attention modulate hippocampal spatial representations, employing the echolocating bat as a model system. Ultimately, I aim to uncover the hippocampal mechanisms associated with naturalistic behaviors, such as foraging in a complex environment with conspecifics, prey, and obstacles.

I'm a PhD student in the Peyrache Lab at McGill University, studying prospective coding and spatial navigation in mice. Using a combination in vivo electrophysiology and behaviour, I am interested in understanding how the hippocampus integrates memory with decision information to plan future spatial trajectories

I'm a PhD student at the Lima Lab at the Champalimaud Research, in Lisbon, studying sexual behavior. My project focuses on understanding the spinal microcircuits controlling ejaculation in mice and how they integrate external and internal cues to drive behaviour.

2022 IBRO/USCRC Fellow

I'm a PhD student at Kropff's Laboratory of Physiology and Algorithms of the Brain, in the Leloir Institute in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I am interested in spatial navigation in mammals. Currently, we are trying to untangle the relationship between neurogenesis in the hippocampus and CA3 spatial representations in mice using in vivo optoelectrophysiology. I also worked with the Octodon Degus in Chile, a natural model of Alzheimer's disease, characterizing place cells and oscillatory activity in CA1. In my bachelor thesis in Córdoba, I was part of the Experimental Psychology laboratory and studied the interaction of incentive leasing and the reconsolidation of fear memories in rats.

I am a PhD student in the Bernal lab at Purdue University. I am interested in exploring how acoustic signal production and perception might be affected by the introduction of novel disturbances associated with noise in urban environments.

 am a PhD student at University of California, San Diego in the Lovett-Barron lab studying internal states in larval zebrafish. Using a combination of whole brain 2-photon calcium imaging in behaving fish and in vivo patch clamp electrophysiology, I am specifically interested in determining the cellular and network mechanisms of persistent neural activity during an olfactory-induced fear-like state.

I´m a PhD in Neuroscience, currently working in the Neuroscience Laboratory of the School of Science, Universidad de la República, Uruguay. I am focused on the mechanisms of action of psychedelic substances with therapeutic potential. Specifically, I am interested in the role of perineuronal nets in the neuroplasticity and behavioral flexibility induced by psychedelic substances such as N,N-dimethyltryptamine and ibogaine, in adults and adolescent rats.

I'm a PhD student in the Neural Circuits lab at the Biomedicine Research Institute of Buenos Aires, Partner Institute of the Max Planck Society, CONICET. I am working on a project about hippocampal memory engrams and neurogenesis in mice. The aim of our study is to evaluate the participation of engram and non-engram cells, as well as immature and mature neurons in a virtual discrimination task by studying their morphological and electrophysiological properties.

I am an MD/PhD student in Ben Philpot's lab at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My project focuses on dissecting the neural circuitry underlying epileptogenesis in a mouse model of Angelman Syndrome using cell type-specific gene deletion and reinstatement strategies and in vitro slice electrophysiology.

I'm a PhD student in Simon Sponberg's lab at Georgia Tech. My project is on multisensory integration and short-term memory in insect flight control. This involves studying hover-feeding of hawkmoths, by analyzing the free behavior as a feedback control system. I also do multichannel electrophysiology in the ventral nerve cord to find the neural basis of this behavior, while in virtual reality.

I am a PhD student in the Neural Circuits & Development lab led by Dr Vatsala Thirumalai at National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, India. I study refinement of cerebellar motor circuits during early development in larval zebrafish. I am interested in understanding how fine tuning of neuronal circuits during early postnatal development is reflected in behavior.

I'm a PhD student in Lovett-Barron Lab at UC San Diego, interested in the neurobiology of collective behavior. With two-photon calcium imaging and vision-based virtual reality, I study how visuomotor circuit support dynamic and robust action coordination in schooling Danionella to understand how animals extract social information from others.