New approaches to probe computations in neural circuits using single-neuron perturbations

Dr. Harvey will present new worked aimed at identifying computations performed in local neuronal populations. They have developed a method based on two-photon imaging and two-photon optogenetics to measure the causal, functional connectivity in a population of neurons with characterized activity patterns and tuning. We call this method influence mapping - a measure of how one neuron's spiking causally affects spiking in its neighbors. We have applied this method in mouse V1 to reveal new functional relationships between tuned neurons. He will also discuss applications of influence mapping to the study of computations for flexible sensorimotor decision-making.