Projects

Our over-arching goal is to understand the neural bases of cognitive and behavioral sequences through research that integrates human and animal experimental models. These complementary levels of analysis allow us to construct an understanding of sequential control spanning cells, networks, and behavior.

Despite the fact that sequences are ubiquitous in our daily lives and are potentially impacted in conditions such as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), attention deficit disorder (ADD), dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease, and Parkinson’s Disease, we know relatively little about their neural bases. They have been called “…the most important and also the most neglected problem of cerebral physiology.” (Lashley, 1951, The Problem of Serial Order in Behavior). We focus on brain areas associated with flexible control and use the power of a cross-species approach in our research questions. Working across species enables specificity at the level of single neurons to be directly related to human brain function.

Research Questions:
  1. Which brain areas support sequential task performance in animals, and how?  Using awake-behaving neuroimaging, we will determine the relative contributions of frontal cortical areas to tracking sequential information.
  2. Which brain areas support sequential task performance in humans, and how do they relate to those in animals? Using the same kind of neuroimaging in the same task, we will directly determine the functional homology across species.
  3. What are the specific neural mechanisms underlying sequential control in frontal cortex?  We will use electrophysiology in animals guided by neuroimaging to determine the cellular makup of sequential control signals.
  4. How is sequential control affected in disease and disorder? Though reports of behaviors that seem like sequential disruptions often occur in OCD, ADD, and Alzheimer’s Disease (for example), very little direct investigation has been completed in these domains. Through collaboration with clinicians and other experts in the field, we will investigation sequential control in other human populations.