Mentor Areas
The mammalian brain is composed of a rich mosaic of regions that vary in their cyto- and chemo-architecture, anatomical connectivity, and functional response properties. This complex architecture supports perception, but it also reflects perception – it is shaped by our experience of the world. How does our environment guide neural development, and how does the emerging neural architecture support perception and behavior? Our research combines neuroimaging, behavioral psychophysics, and electrophysiology to understand how intrinsic and experience-driven processes interact throughout development to shape brain organization and behavior.
Description:
Our research combines neuroimaging, psychophysics, and electrophysiology to understand how intrinsic and experience-driven processes interact throughout development to shape brain organization and behavior. Our current focus is on neural development supporting visual object recognition across mammalian species.
Projects will vary. Interested students should contact us to discuss possibilities.
Currently, we are looking for an undergraduate to work on a project to build a digitized atlas of the tree shrew brain. The tree shrew is an emerging animal model for understanding human neurobiological function and disease. Anatomical atlases provide the basis for such investigations. Traditionally, brain atlases are published as a collection of individual brain slices often only presented in a single plane (e.g. coronal slices). Researchers make use of such atlases by going slice-by-slice and "eyeballing" their area of interest. Here, we aim to create a digitized 3-dimensional brain atlas that will allow for: 1) viewing in any plane, 2) quantitative analyses of morphological features for cortical and subcortical structures, 3) linking with neuroimaging datasets, 4) establishing a digital archive to aggregate data across targeted neural recordings.
Preferred Qualifications
Proficiency with Matlab, Python, and UNIX is strongly preferred.
Project Website
Learn more about the researcher and/or the project here. Arcaro Lab
Details:
Preferred Student Year
Second-Year, Junior, Senior, First-year
Academic Term
Spring, Summer
I prefer to have students start during the above term(s).Volunteer
Yes
Yes indicates that faculty are open to volunteers.Paid
No
Yes indicates that faculty are open to paying students they engage in their research, regardless of their work-study eligibility.Work Study
Yes
Yes indicates that faculty are open to hiring work-study-eligible students.