Abstract
Advancements in neural recording technologies have significantly enhanced our ability to capture high-fidelity neural activity during behavior, leading to many groundbreaking discoveries. To study increasingly sophisticated aspects of brain function, there are strong and consistent demands for recording technology with even higher spatiotemporal resolution that can also accommodate diverse and complex animal behaviors.
I will discuss our work on advancing current neural recording technologies, particularly in fluorescence imaging. We have successfully imaged voltage from neurons across the whole-brain volume of a larval zebrafish at millisecond resolution. I will also describe how our new CMOS image sensor with pixel-wise programmable exposures (“PE-CMOS”) addresses the fundamental trade-off of speed, signal-to-noise-ratio, spatial and temporal resolution during high-speed acquisition of fluorescence signals to enable the application of large-scale, high-speed, voltage imaging in freely behaving animals.
I will conclude by outlining the plan to combine these innovations to optically resolve spiking events and temporal coding of neuron ensembles while allowing for naturalistic behavior in rodents and larval zebrafish — two widely used model systems in neuroscience research. I will also share the experimental plan using these systems to investigate the cell-type specific neural computations underlying complex behaviors such as learning and memory consolidation.
Bio
Jie (Jack) Zhang is a Research Scientist at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, working with Dr. Matthew Wilson. His current research focuses on neurotechnology development and the study of neural mechanisms underlying spatial memory consolidation. He also builds open-source electronics and tools for the neuroscience community and is a key contributor to Open-Ephys, an open-source electrophysiology non-profit organization.
Jack received his B.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Johns Hopkins University, working with Dr. Ralph Etienne-Cummings. He also spent time as a visiting researcher at IMEC in Belgium. His Ph.D. work focused on image sensor design and integrated circuits for neural electrophysiology.
