I.C. Learning & Memory

Mayank Mehta

Research in the Mehta lab addresses the following fundamental questions in Neurophysics: How is information about the physical world represented by ensembles of neurons? In particular, what are the neural mechanisms of perceiving space-time? How do these neural representations evolve with learning? What is the role of brain rhythms in learning and memory? How does sleep influence learning? To address these questions the lab uses both experimental and theoretical approaches, including the development of hardware to measure and manipulate neural activity and behavior. They also measure the activity of ensembles of well isolated neurons from many hippocampal and neocortical areas simultaneously during learning and during sleep, develop data analysis tools to decipher the patterns of neural activity and field potentials, and their relationship to behavior, as well as develop biophysical theories of synapses, neurons and neuronal networks that can explain these experimental findings, relate them to the underlying cellular mechanisms, and make experimentally testable predictions.

Lab web site

Recent Publications:

Jason J. Moore, Pascal M. Ravassard, David Ho, Lavanya Acharya, Ashley L. Kees, Cliff Vuong, Mayank R. Mehta, Dynamics of cortical dendritic membrane potential and spikes in freely behaving rats. Science Vol. 355, Issue 6331, 1281 (2017), 24 March 2017. | Read online | News coverage

Lavanya Acharya, Zahra Aghajan, Jason Moore, Cliff Vuong, Mayank R. Mehta, Causal Influence of Visual Cues on Hippocampal Directional Selectivity. Cell 164, 197-207 (2015). | Read online | Read News & Views in Cell

Zahra M. Aghajan, Lavanya Acharya, Jason J. Moore, Jesse D. Cushman, Cliff Vuong, Mayank R. Mehta. Impaired spatial selectivity and intact phase precession in two-dimensional virtual reality, Nature Neurosci. doi:10.1038/nn.3884 (2014). Read Online | Read Science Daily article

Jesse D. Cushman, Daniel B. Aharoni, Bernard Willers, Pascal Ravassard, Ashley Kees, Cliff Vuong, Briana Popeney, Katsushi Arisaka, Mayank R. Mehta. Multisensory control of multimodal behavior: Do the legs know what the tongue is doing? PLoS ONE 8(11): e80465 (2013). Read online | Supplementary material

Pascal Ravassard, Ashley Kees, Bernard Willers, David Ho, Daniel Aharoni, Jesse Cushman, Zahra M. Aghajan, Mayank R. Mehta. Multisensory control of hippocampal spatiotemporal selectivity. Science, 340: 1342-1346 (2013). Read online | Supplementary material | Science editorial

T. G. Hahn, J. M. McFarland, S. Berberich, B. Sakmann, M. R. Mehta. Spontaneous persistent activity in entorhinal cortex modulates cortico-hippocampal interaction in vivo. Nature Neuroscience 15(11) 1531-1538 (2012). Read online | News and Views.

E. Resnik, J. M. McFarland, R. Sprengel, B. Sakmann, M. R. Mehta. The Effects of GluA1 Deletion on the Hippocampal Code for Position. J. Neurosci 32(26) 8952-8968 (2012).
Read online

O. Ahmed, M. R. Mehta. Running Speed Alters the Frequency of Hippocampal Gamma Oscillations. J. Neurosci 32(21), 7373-7383 (2012). Read online