Topic: mice

Investigate how mice learn and generalize between virtual and real environments in the Optophysiology Lab at IMBIT. The project combines behavioural experiments, neural recordings and quantitative analysis with development and in-vivo validation of a two-photon miniscope. The researcher will contribute to device design, model behavioural and neural data, and help interpret and publish findings. The 65% appointment is funded for three years, with a possible extension; the advertised initial term ends on 30 November 2029. Pay follows E13 TV-L. Applications close on 31 October 2026.

Zoe has developed an open-source tool PhaSER, which allows her to perform real-time oscillatory phase estimation and apply optogenetic manipulations at precise phases of hippocampal theta during high-density electrophysiological recordings in head-fixed mice while they navigate a virtual environment. The precise timing of single-unit spiking relative to network-wide oscillations (i.e., phase locking) has long been thought to maintain excitatory-inhibitory homeostasis and coordinate cognitive processes, but due to intense experimental demands, the causal influence of this phenomenon has never b

Animals often seek knowledge of no apparent extrinsic value, suggesting that knowledge is a source of intrinsic value. Therefore, the desire to acquire information may be an innate motivational drive. We have developed a task in mice to study the neural mechanisms that compute the value of informative stimuli that drive information seeking. Mice are provided with odor cues in a center port that dictate entry into one of two side ports. The side ports offer water reward with identical probability and differ only in whether they provide an information odor cue that reveals the reward outcome. We

Understanding how internally driven cognitive processes (COPs) give rise to behavior in different species is one of the key challenges in systems neuroscience. Traditionally, neuroscience has aimed to isolate individual COPs by simplifying sensory stimuli and behavioral readouts. Yet in natural behavior, several COPs can co-occur, often with overlapping neural representations. The dynamics of such superimposed COPs are yet to be understood, as well as the extent to which they generalize across species. To tackle this question, we developed a naturalistic Virtual Reality setup in which two spec

We provide protocols for the social transfer of pain and analgesia in mice. We describe the steps to induce pain or analgesia (pain relief) in bystander mice with a 1-h social interaction with a partner injected with CFA (complete Freund’s adjuvant) or CFA and morphine, respectively. We detail behavioral tests to assess pain or analgesia in the untreated bystander mice. This protocol has been validated in mice and rats and can be used for investigating mechanisms of empathy. Highlights • A protocol for the rapid social transfer of pain in rodents • Detailed requirements for handling and housin

It is common for animals to use self-generated movements to actively sense the surrounding environment. For instance, rodents rhythmically move their whiskers to explore the space close to their body. The mouse whisker system has become a standard model to study active sensing and sensorimotor integration through feedback loops. In this work, we developed a bioinspired spiking neural network model of the sensorimotor peripheral whisker system, modelling trigeminal ganglion, trigeminal nuclei, facial nuclei, and central pattern generator neuronal populations. This network was embedded in a virt

Understanding how the brain uses information is a fundamental goal of neuroscience. Several human disorders (ranging from autism spectrum disorder to PTSD to Alzheimer’s disease) may stem from disrupted information processing. Therefore, this basic knowledge is not only critical for understanding normal brain function, but also vital for the development of new treatment strategies for these disorders. Memory may be defined as the retention over time of internal representations gained through experience, and the capacity to reconstruct these representations at later times. Long-lasting physical

Classical models of perceptual decision-making assume that animals use a single, consistent strategy to integrate sensory evidence and form decisions during an experiment. In this talk, I aim to convince you that this common view is incorrect. I will show results from applying a latent variable framework, the “GLM-HMM”, to hundreds of thousands of trials of mouse choice data. Our analysis reveals that mice don’t lapse. Instead, mice switch back and forth between engaged and disengaged behavior within a single session, and each mode of behavior lasts tens to hundreds of trials.

Animals are motivated to acquire knowledge. A particularly striking example is information seeking behavior: animals often seek out sensory cues that will inform them about the properties of uncertain future rewards, even when there is no way for them to use this information to influence the reward outcome, and even when this information comes at a considerable cost. Evidence from monkey electrophysiology and human fMRI studies suggests that orbitofrontal cortex and midbrain dopamine neurons represent the subjective value of knowledge during information seeking behavior. However, it remains un

Joint exploration of behavior, genes and brain structure holds the promise to provide a better understanding of neural circuits than unimodal data analyses. Several consortia provide extensive data resources of different modalities. However, analyses of heteromodal data require the expertise of computer scientists for fusing the different resources into a common space. To tackle this limitation, we extended BrainTrawler, our web-based visual analytics frame work for exploration of neurobiological data of human and mice, with a selection of publicly available gene expression and connectivity da