ABOUT US
＜Aims of our laboratory＞
Animals perceive the external environment by their nervous system based on sensory inputs, and make a decision what to behave. Except for some simple reflex-movements, few studies have completely elucidated the neural mechanisms throughout all processes from the receive of stimuli to information processing and to motor control for a specific behavior. In our laboratory, we aim at a complete description of the neural circuit “from sensory input to motor output” and its computational processes, by using the escape behavior elicited by the airflow and the phonotaxis behavior induced by the conspecific calling song in the cricket.
In addition, the Fukutomi Group has begun research on electric fishes focusing on the mechanism of electrical communication and its linkage with swimming movements. The details of Fukutomi Group’ｓstudy is follows >.
＜Research strategy＞
Toward the above reserach methods, we mainly use electrophysiology and optical recording techniques (imaging). In particular, the optical imaging is a very powerful tool for visualizing the activity of the local region of single neuron and analyzing the spatiotemporal pattern of neural activity in the brain. Artificial manipulation of the environment with virtual reality (VR)and simultaneous measurements of animal's movement with a treadmill orhigh-speed camera are combined with these two physiological recording methodsto elucidate the information processing and computational algorithm of thecentral nerve system. We alsol try decoding analysis of neural activities bymachine learning.
NEWS & TOPICS
- The URL to website of our laboratory has been changed!
- Introduction video to our laboratory has been made. Please access to the following YouTube Channel: >.
