Roelfsema group

General description research

The Roelfsema lab studies visual perception, plasticity, memory and consciousness in the visual system of mice, monkeys, humans, and with neural networks. The main question is how neurons in different brain areas work together during seeing, thinking, learning and conscious awareness. One important line of research develops the neurotechnology for high-bandwidth visual prostheses for blind people, aiming to restore a rudimentary form of sight. The lab develops high density probes that can be used to record and electrically stimulate in deeper brain structures.

Psychiatric symptoms (or disorders) the group is interested in

We have carried out research on reward processing, testing the influence of reward on the representation of stimuli in the visual cortex. We would be interested in leveraging the new high density probe that can place 1000 electrodes in a deeper brain structure of mice and monkeys (with dimensions up to ~10mm) for psychiatric diseases. Here are a few ideas: (1) It would be of interest to place the probe in e.g. the hypothalamus to study the activity of the neurons during e.g. drinking and eating. The same probe could also be used in brain structures involved in the regulation of mood, including the VTA, amygdala, lateral habenula and cingulate cortex, in mice and in monkeys. (2) The lab develops optogenetic methods in monkeys. It would be intersting to extend to pharmacogenetics and regulate the activity of specific circuits to influence or alleviate psychiatric symptoms, e.g. in anorexia.

Technical approaches

• We developed, together with Phosphoenix (our start-up company) a high-channel count electrophysiology including the 1000 channel probe for deeper brain structures. We would like to use it in humans. We also use Utah-arrays and Neuropixel recordings for high density recordings of single and multi-unit activity. We can stimulate through electrodes placed in different brain structures in combination with fMRI in monkeys.
• We develop methods for optogenetics, sonogenetics and chemogenetics in monkeys in collaboration with the Institut de la Vision in Paris.
• We record single units from people with epilepsy, usually in the medial temporal lobe but occasionally also in other brain structures including the insula (in collaboration with Keysers and Gazzola)

Keywords: reward processing, eating disorders, neurotechnology, deep brain structures

List of  the matching research domains (see below) and/or disorders
Negative valence: Frustrative Nonreward
Postive valence: all topics listed here
Cognitive systems: Visual perception, language, cognitive control, working memory
Social processes: —
Arousal and regulatory systems: —
Sensorimotor systems: All items listed under motor actions.