Last update: 2025-Nov-12

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Education

    B.S. in Biophysics and Biochemistry

    Ph.D. in Biological Sciences (Auditory System Characterization)


Research Experience

2001-2003: Studies in biology with Dr. Tetsu Akiyama and Dr. Yasufumi Emori at the University of Tokyo.

2002: Studies in biology with Dr. Masaaki Hamaguchi at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Undergraduate Research Program.

2003: Research assistant in neuroscience with Dr. Dmitri Chklovskii at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

2004-2008: Graduate studies in neuroscience with Dr. Anthony Zador at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

2008-2015: Postdoctoral studies in neuroscience with Dr. Markus Meister at Harvard University and California Institute of Technology.

2016-present: Group Leader in neurobiology (outgoing GL since 2025) at European Molecular Biology Laboratory.


Awards

2003-2007: Farish-Gerry Fellowship, Watson School of Biological Sciences.

2009-2011: Postdoctoral Fellowships for Research Abroad, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

2010: Gatsby Cosyne Fellowship (travel award).

2014-2015: Gosney Endowment Postdoctoral Fellowship, California Institute of Technology.


Original research publications

[23] Aymard, P., Boffi, J.C., Asari, H., Prevedel, R. & Holcman, D. (2025) Column-Like Subnetwork Reconstruction in Motor Cortex from Graph-Based 3D High-Density Two-Photon Calcium Imaging. bioRxiv, 2025.06.17.660119.

[22] Kamm, G.B., Boffi, J.C., Abd El Hay, M.Y., Rajot, D., Cukic, A., Havenith, M., Scholvinck, M., Renier, N., Asari, H. & Prevedel, R. (2025) Central infusion of prostaglandin E2 reveals a unified representation of sickness in the mouse insular cortex. bioRxiv, 2025.04.28.651028.

[21] Benusiglio, D. & Asari, H. (2024) Sudden sensory events trigger modality-independent responses across layers in the mouse neocortex. bioRxiv, 2024.11.07. 622472.

[20] Joseph, E., Leonardi, C., Di Nunzio, L., Ucci, M.A., Ciocca, M., Mariani, P., Podapangi, S.K., Castriotta, L.A., Vesce, L., Medaglia, P.G., Cardarilli, G.C., Di Carlo, A., Asari, H., Camaioni, A. & Brown, T.M. (2025, Accepted) A bio-electronic hybrid solid-liquid pixelated color image sensor array as a direct-to-display artificial retina emulator. Adv. Mat. Technol.

[19] Tripodi, M. & Asari H† (2025) The central histaminergic system slows visual processing in the retina and lateral geniculate nucleus of awake mice. PLoS Biol. 23: e3003406. (Datasets available on ZENODO).

[18] Ferrarese, L.* & Asari, H.* (2025) Atypical cortical feedback underlies failure to process contextual information in the superior colliculus of Scn2a+/- autism model mice. Nat. Commun. 16: 8659. (* denotes co-corresponding author; Datasets available on FIGSHARE).

[17] Lapanja, T., Micheli, P., González-Guerra, A., Radomskyi, O., De Franceschi, G., Muraveva, A., Attinger, A., Roth, C., Tripodi, M., Boissonnet, T., Sabbadini, M., Juettner, J., Ala-Laurila, P., Keller, G., Allina, G.P., Asari, H. & Rompani S. (2025) Pupil size modulation drives retinal activity in mice and shapes human perception. Nat. Commun. 16: 7334.

[16] Latini, L., De Araujo, D.S.M., Amato, R., Canovai, A., Buccarello, L., De Logu, F., Novelli, E., Vlasiuk, A., Malerba, F., Arisi, I., Florio, R., Asari, H., Capsoni, S., Strettoi, E., Villetti, G., Imbimbo, B.P., Dal Monte, M., Nassini, R., Geppetti, P., Marinelli, S. & Cattaneo, A. (2024) A p75 neurotrophin receptor-sparing nerve growth factor protects retinal ganglion cells from neurodegeneration by targeting microglia. Br. J. Pharmacol. 181: 4890–4919.

[15]  Boffi, J.C., Bathellier, B., Asari, H., & Prevedel, R. (2024) Noisy neuronal populations effectively encode sound localization in the dorsal inferior colliculus of awake mice. eLife 13: RP97598. (Datasets available on BioImage Archive)

[14] Molotkov, D.†, Ferrarese, L.†, Boissonnet, T. & Asari, H. (2023) Topographic axonal projection at single-cell precision supports local retinotopy in the mouse superior colliculus. Nat. Commun. 14: 7418. († denotes equall contributions; Datasets available on FIGSHARE).

[13] Boissonnet, T., Tripodi, M. & Asari, H. (2023) Awake responses suggest inefficient dense coding in the mouse retina. eLife 12: e78005. (Datasets availabe on DRYAD) - Featured with Insight article by Fadjukov, J., & Schwartz, G.

[12] Deivasigamani, S., Miteva, M.T., Natale, S., Gutierrez-Barragan, D., Basilico, B., Di Angelantonio, S., Weinhard, L., Molotkov ,D., Deb, S., Pape, C., Bolasco, G., Galbusera, A., Asari, H., Gozzi, A., Ragozzino, D. & Gross, C.T. (2023) Microglia complement signaling promotes neuronal elimination and normal brain functional connectivity. Cereb. Cortex 33: 10750–10760.

[11] Rahy, R., Asari, H. & Gross, C.T. (2022) Sensory-thresholded switch of neural firing states in a computational model of the ventromedial hypothalamus. Front. Comput. Neurosci. 16, 964634.

[10] Abballe, L. & Asari, H. (2022) Natural image statistics for mouse vision. PLoS ONE 17:e0262763.

[9] Vlasiuk, A. & Asari, H. (2021) Feedback from retinal ganglion cells to the inner retina. PLoS ONE 16: e0254611.

[8] Ciocca, M., Giannakou, P., Mariani, P., Cinà, L., Di Carlo, A., Tas, M.O., Asari, H., Marcozzi, S., Camaioni, A., Shkunov, M., Brown, T.M. (2020) Colour-sensitive conjugated polymer inkjet-printed pixelated artificial retina model studied via a bio-hybrid photovoltaic device. Sci. Rep. 10: 1-15. 

[7] Real, E., Asari, H.*, Gollisch, T., & Meister, M*. (2017) Neural circuit inference from function to structure. Curr. Biol. 27: 189-198. (* denotes co-corresponding author).

[6] Teeters, J.L., Godfrey, K., Young, R., Dang, C., Friedsam, C., Wark, B., Asari, H., Peron, S., Li, N., Peyrache, A., Denisov, G., Siegle, J., Olsen, S.R., Martin, C., Chun, M., Tripathy, S., Blanche, T.J., Harris, K., Buzsaki, G., Koch, C., Meister, M., Svoboda, K., & Sommer, F.T. (2015). Neurodata without borders: Creating a common data format for neurophysiology. Neuron 88: 629-634.

[5] Nagarah, J.M., Stowasser, A., Parker, R.L., Asari, H. & Wagenaar, D.A. (2015) Optically transparent multi–suction electrode arrays. Front. Neurosci. 9: 384.

[4] Asari, H. & Meister, M. (2014) The projective field of retinal bipolar cells and its modulation by visual context. Neuron. 81: 641-652.

[3] Asari, H. & Meister, M. (2012) Divergence of visual channels in the inner retina. Nat. Neurosci. 15: 1581-1589.

[2] Asari, H. & Zador, A.M. (2009) Long-lasting context dependence constrains neural encoding models in rodent auditory cortex. J. Neurophys. 102(5): 2638-2656.

[1] Asari, H., Pearlmutter, B.A., & Zador, A.M. (2006) Sparse representations for the cocktail party problem. J. Neurosci. 26(28): 7477-7490.


Review, essay, and perspective

[3] Malik-Sheriff, R.S., Asari, H., Hermjakob, H., Huber, W., Quail, T., Santos, S.D., Smith, A.M., Uhlmann, V. (2024) BioModels’ Model of the Year 2023. Frontiers in Systems Biology 4: 1363884. 

[2] Asari, H. (2020) Comparison of research environments between Europe and the United States. Biophysics 61(5): 347–348. 

[1] Asari, H. (2020) Which should come first in neuroscience: theory or experiment? Brain & Neural Networks, 27: 118-126. 


Conference Proceedings, Book Chapters, Data Contributions, and Preprints

[5] Zhang, Y., Asari, H., & Meister, M. (2014) Multi-electrode recordings from retinal ganglion cells. CRCNS.org. http://dx.doi.org/10.6080/K0RF5RZT

[4] Asari, H., Wehr, M., Machens, C.K., & Zador, A.M. (2009) Auditory cortex and thalamic neuronal responses to various natural and synthetic sounds. CRCNS.org. http://dx.doi.org/10.6080/K0KW5CXE

[3] Asari, H., Olsson, R.K., Pearlmutter, B.A., & Zador, A.M. (2007) Sparsification for monaural source separation. In Makino, S., Lee, T-W., & Sawada, H. (eds.) Blind Speech Separation, Chap. 14, pp.387-410, Springer-Verlag. ISBN: 978-1-4020-6478-4

[2] Pearlmutter, B.A., Asari, H., & Zador, A.M. (2005) Neuronal predictions of sparse linear representations. Forum Acusticum 2005, Aug 29-Sep 2, Budapest, Hungary.

[1] Asari, H. (2004) Non-negative Matrix Factorization: A possible way to learn sound dictionaries