Credit: Gabriel Luna

The brain is a highly interconnected system that operates in a modular manner and as a whole. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), light microscopy and electrophysiology, NRI investigators grapple with the network as an adaptive dynamical system. By characterizing the temporal activity of neural ensembles and ultimately entire nervous systems, they seek to unravel emergent properties underlying fundamental brain functions such as decision making, multisensory integration and learning. Using optogenetics and other functional perturbative approaches, they aim to test causal relationships between the structure and the function of interconnected neural circuits.

Researchers

Professor
Dr. Gazzaniga conducts research on how the brain enables mind.
Professor
Visual attention; Cognitive neuroscience; Brain Imaging; Exercise physiology.
Assistant Professor
The overarching goal of my research is to better understand how the mammalian neocortex processes and stores incoming sensory information.
Assistant Professor
Uses human brain imaging techniques (fMRI) and endocrinology to determine the impact of sex steroid hormones on brain morphology and function.
Assistant Professor
Neural circuit dynamics and behavior; navigation in a visual environment; neural mechanisms of object selection and decision-making.
Associate Professor
Combining theory and experimentation to understand how navigational decisions come about in terms of neural-circuit computation.
Duggan Professor and Distinguished Professor
Decoding the receptors and channels required for animal behavior in Drosophila and the mosquito, Aedes aegypti.
Assistant Professor
Genetically encoded biomolecular sensors for probing neural activity and cell function noninvasively in living animals using  magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Associate Professor
Systems neuroscience, neuroethology, and genetics, applied to dissecting the neural circuits that control a flexible motor sequence of grooming in fruit flies.
Assistant Professor
Information processing by neural circuitry with a special focus on the role of active dendrites in nonlinear modes of synaptic integration.
Co-Director, UCSB Brain Initiative
Associate Professor
Neuroengineering multiphoton imaging systems. Studying how neurons and their networks compute. Mouse visual system, behavior, large scale networks with subcellular resolution.
Assistant Professor
Studies how the brain represents information in support of goal-directed behavior using computational neuroimaging.
Professor
Dr. Szumlinski's research focuses on the neuropsychopharmacology of substance use and related disorders.
Professor
Attention disorders and media-multitasking, moral judgment and conflict in narratives, media violence and aggression, persuasion neuroscience, cognitive control and flow experiences.