George Dragoi, MD, PhD
Associate Professor of Psychiatry and of NeuroscienceCards
About
Research
Overview
Learned information is not encoded in isolation, but is integrated within a network of preexisting knowledge stored in patterns of neuronal ensemble functional connectivity. Our immediate goal is to investigate:
1. How these patterns emerge during development
2. How are they utilized in behavior
3. How are they disrupted in neuropsychiatric diseases.
The hippocampus, a brain structure initially implicated in rapid learning and formation of episodic memory, is now recognized to encode internally-generated spatial-temporal sequence representations. Its dysfunctions have resulted in anterograde amnesia, impaired imagining of new experiences, and hallucinations. Achieving our goal will be facilitated by our use of electrophysiological recordings of ensembles of neurons in behaving mice and rats, optogenetic manipulation of neurons, optical imaging of neuronal ensembles, and computational methods for decoding neuronal population activity.
Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
Links & Media
News
- August 14, 2024Source: Yale News
Sleep on It: How the Brain Processes Many Experiences — Even When ‘Offline’
- August 12, 2024Source: Medical Xpress
Exploring How the Mammalian Brain Represents Multiple Sequential Experiences During Sleep
- January 11, 2024Source: YaleNews
Re-frame of Mind: Do Our Brains Have a Built-in Sense of ‘Grammar’?
- May 10, 2022
Sleep’s Crucial Role in Preserving Memory