welcome to our neural dynamics lab
Our work is on the nonlinear dynamics of neurons, neural networks, and neural populations. These dynamics are beautiful, and are richly varied from setting to setting – at times governed by mechanisms we can distill and explain and at times still eluding our best analytical tools. PI: Eric Shea-Brown.
Beyond explaining the emergent dynamics of neural circuits, we want to understand how they encode and make decisions about the sensory world. Making progress on these twin problems requires a range of perspectives and methods.
We delight in collaboration with fellow theorists of many different backgrounds, and with experimental groups at UW, the Allen Institute, and beyond. Our methods blend data analysis, dynamical systems, stochastic processes, and information theory – and treat neural dynamics occurring on a number of spatial and temporal scales.
We commit to nondiscrimination, equity, and inclusion in our lab work and culture. We acknowledge the deep impact of discrimination, including structural racism, on the scientific community and on society at large and the urgency of overcoming it. We recognize the high importance of equity with respect to race and ethnicity, gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, economic and social status, religion, ability, and other backgrounds.
We are grateful for support and opportunites from the University of Washington Institute for Neuroengineering, NIH, the Burroughs-Wellcome Fund, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, the NSF (Progs. of Mathematical Biology, Statistics, and Robust Intelligence), the Simons Foundation, the UW Center for Neurotechnology, and NSERC.
Find us in the Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Washington, Lewis Hall, Seattle, WA 98195-2420, and in the new, interdepartmental UW Computational Neuroscience Center, which we worked with Adrienne Fairhall colleagues to help found.
If you would like listen to more about what inspires us to work on dynamical systems and the brain, kindly check out this Brain Inspired Podcast with Eric, by Paul Middlebrooks.
