Colloquium Series: Dr. Ian Oldenburg, Rutgers University

Dr. Ian Oldenburg

Assistant Professor of Neuroscience and Cell Biology

Rutgers University

Tuesday March 19, 2024, 4pm Chapman Hall Rm. 125

Title: Holographic Optogenetic Dissection of Cortical Circuits

Abstract: 

Neural activity is complex and multidimensional, with many neurons working in concert to form perceptions and drive movements. While scientists have developed sophisticated techniques to monitor this activity in great detail, our ability to experimentally change these firing patterns is more limited. This leads to difficulty both in understanding the detailed effects of connections between cells, and in linking neural activity to behaviors. We use and develop an all-optical approach to dissect elements of neural activity in great precision. Multiphoton Holographic Optogenetics allows a user to target individual neurons and drive them to fire, through a series of improvements, we created a new technique that allows us to write different patterns of activity into different cells. Writing a detailed population activity and paving the way to test theories of population coding. We use multiphoton optogenetics, in all its forms, to understand cortical processing and neural activity during behaviors.

Bio:

Ian Antón Oldenburg is an Assistant Professor of Neuroscience and Cell Biology and a Resident Faculty at the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine at Rutgers University. He got his PhD in Neuroscience from Harvard University studying Basal Ganglia and did postdoctoral work at UC Berkeley developing new optical approaches to manipulate neural activity with high precision. The Oldenburg lab uses these Multiphoton Holographic Optogenetic approaches to study how neurons interact and how neural activity gives rise to movements. In many cases, the first step to answer these questions is to build new tools that allow ever more precise manipulations.