Our aim is to understand the internal organisation of activity in cortical microcircuits. In other words, how different groups of neurons (e.g. excitatory and inhibitory cells, or subtypes thereof), or even individual neurons, coordinate their spiking on different temporal and spatial scales. We primarily rely on electrophysiological in vivo recordings and computational modelling.
(Click on any image to go to its corresponding paper)
For example, in the past (and also more recently) our work studied the coordination of excitation and inhibition (often referred to as excitation-inhibition balance). More recent work considered how and why individual neurons vary in the strength of their coupling to population rate and LFP.
These days we are studying how the structure of population activity depends on timescale and is influenced by psychoactive drugs such as psychedelics.
Over the years we also directed some effort towards development of experimental techniques, for example evaluating the quality and stability of chronic silicon probe implants. This proved to be quite useful for Neuropixels and Neuropixels 2.0 probes, and for tracking the same neurons. Another example is a work about caveats with recording LFP signals using standard amplifiers (e.g. OpenEphys).
Our research is funded by Academy of Medical Sciences / Wellcome Trust , Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC),
and Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals
