Systems Neuroscience & Neuroengineering
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Research |
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The RoLi lab is jointly led by Drew Robson and Jennifer Li. We seek to discover computational principles and mechanistic implementations of cognition in both biological and artificial systems.
We work with the larval zebrafish, a unique model organism with a compact and transparent brain in which nearly every neuron can be simultaneously recorded. Our neuroengineering team develops novel imaging systems to record and manipulate neural activity in freely swimming larval zebrafish, and our systems neuroscience team use these tools to gain a deeper understanding of the neural mechanisms that organize internal brain states and abstract cognitive representations. Our lab is funded by the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics and the European Research Council (ERC Synergy Grant 2024) 
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Neuroengineering 
Kim DH, Kim J, Marques JC, Grama A, Hildebrand DGC, Gu W, Li JM* & Robson DN*. Pan-neuronal calcium imaging with cellular resolution in freely swimming zebrafish. Nature Methods. 2017 Nov;14(11):1107-1114
Over the last decade, larval zebrafish has emerged as an ideal system for brain-wide cellular resolution calcium imaging due to its small nervous system and high optical transparency. However, most existing imaging methods require the animal to be tethered under a microscope, which significantly restricts the range of behaviors the animal can perform. To overcome this limitation, our lab actively develops new microscopy systems that enable whole-brain imaging and manipulation in freely swimming larval zebrafish.
Using these systems, we are now investigating a wide repertoire of natural behaviors, including spatial navigation, social behavior, feeding, and reward. |
Systems Neuroscience 
Illustration by Gon Yishay on the discovery of place cells in fish
Yang, C., Mammen, L., Kim, B., Li, M., Robson, D. N., & Li, J.M. A population code for spatial representation in the zebrafish telencephalon. Nature (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07867-2
The RoLi lab aims to discover how the brain can efficiently and flexibly create internal representations of the external world.
With only ~100,000 neurons total at larval stages, the zebrafish brain is a remarkable example of how a small neural network can efficiently store a vast amount of information about the world, including spatial cognitive maps, environmental context, and social interactions. Among vertebrate animals, the zebrafish brain represents a minimal model of neural processing, making it possible to obtain comprehensive neural activity across the brain, the underlying synaptic connectivity, the molecular identity of individual cells, and targeted manipulation of circuit dynamics. We have two primary areas of interest – 1) the neural mechanism of cognition, and 2) the interaction between neuromodulation and cognitive representations.
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