The question:
Much of what we do relies on our brain’s ability to flexibly adapt behavior in ever-changing environments. Whether it is a tennis player fine-tuning their serve in response to a formidable opponent, or an individual rerouting their commute due to unexpected traffic, everyday life requires us to quickly adapt on incoming information. Our lab’s goal is to determine the neural circuits and computations underlying behavioral flexibility, and how maladaptations within these circuits can lead to compulsive behaviors.
Importance:
Our focus on the neural underpinnings of behavioral flexibility is twofold. First, while flexibility is indispensable for survival in biological systems, it remains a major challenge to implement for artificial intelligence. Machine learning can struggle with real-life scenarios demanding sequential learning of different tasks or generalizing the solution of one task to another – both solved effortlessly by the brain and suggesting the existence of neural algorithms that support superior behavioral flexibility. Second, behavioral flexibility deficits are a hallmark of compulsive pathological behaviors like drug addiction.
Approach:
Our lab employs a multidisciplinary approach to study behavioral flexibility and its neural circuitry and computations. At its core, our lab trains rodents on behavioral tasks that rely on flexibility and then determines how disrupting specific neural circuits affects such behaviors. We use a state-of-the-art, fully automated behavioral training system that enables a high-throughput, data-driven approach in behavioral neuroscience. We combine this high-throughput behavioral training with a comprehensive set of neural circuit manipulations techniques (e.g., lesions, neuron-specific silencing and optogenetics) to identify the neural populations and computations involved in flexible and compulsive behaviors. We also combine extracellular voltage recordings and behavioral tracking techniques to understand the neural codes driving behavior.