Integrative Physiology

Our lab is interested in the neural basis and computation underlying perception and decision making. We perform experiments in humans and animals in an effort to understand the link between neuronal activity and behavior at multiple levels. We are also interested in cognitive dysfunction in neuropsychiatric disease.

1. Neural mechanism of flexible perceptual decision making: A hallmark of human cognition is the flexibility to select an appropriate action in response to identical sensory events depending on the environment. We developed a paradigm that evaluates such flexibility across species. We perform human psychophysics as well as animal experiments using state-of-the-art techniques (multi-contact electrodes, ECoG, DREADD) to understand the processes underlying flexible decision making.

2. Neural underpinning of cognitive dysfunction in neuropsychiatric disease: Auditory and prefrontal cortices are known to be dysfunctional in neuropsychiatric disease. We use ECoG to obtain localized neurophysiological measurements of auditory potentials that capture neuropsychiatric dysfunction in early stages of the disease.

Staff

Name Title・Positions Main Research Focus
Takanori UKA Professor Neural basis of perceptual decision making
Takeshi SAIGUSA Senior Assistant Professor The role of brain angiotensin in cardiovascular regulation
Maho ISHIDA Assistant Professor Paracrine interaction and antimitogenic action of estrogen
Tetsuo MITSUI Assistant Professor The mechanism of antimitogenic action of estrogen