Memory Guided Navigation

Episodic memory and memory-guided navigation are fundamental cognitive processes that define our sense of space and time and rely on neural circuits in the hippocampal formation and connected regions. The focus of my lab’s research is on investigating the neural mechanisms underlying episodic memory and memory-guided navigation, including the role of cholinergic modulation and sensory inputs in the formation of episodic memory, and how age-related changes in cholinergic modulation affect neural activity underpinning the encoding and retrieval of memories. Our experimental techniques include multiple single unit recordings in combination with fiber photometry and/or optogenetics and chemogenetics in freely behaving mice as a model organism. We further use computational modeling approaches to simulate neural circuit activity and develop novel theoretical frameworks to advance our mechanistic understanding.