Multiscale understanding of the structural principles of mammalian sensory system

Faculty

Research Summary

Extraction of information about the environment by the sensory system is important for animal’s survival. We aim to understand the universal principles and diversity of sensory function emergence and its underlying structure by studying the visual system of mice and monkeys at multi-scales, including genes, molecules, cell types, circuits, neural processing, and behaviors.
For this, we combine various techniques such as genetics, two-photon imaging, electrophysiology, transsynaptic labeling, single-cell transcriptomics, and machine learning. Our studies would pave the way to identifying the cell types responsible for sensory diseases and their repair.

Selected Publications

Matsumoto A, Agbariah W, Nolte SS, Andrawos R, Levi H, Sabbah S, Yonehara K. Direction selectivity in retinal bipolar cell axon terminals. Neuron. 2021 Sep 15; 109(18): 2928-2942.e8.

Sethuramanujam S, Matsumoto A, deRosenroll G, Murphy-Baum B, McIntosh JM, Jing M, Li Y, Berson D, Yonehara K, Awatramani GB. Rapid multi-directed cholinergic transmission in the central nervous system. Nat Commun. 2021 Mar 2;12(1):1374.

Rasmussen RN, Matsumoto A, Arvin S, Yonehara K. Binocular integration of retinal motion information underlies optic flow processing by the cortex. Curr Biol. 2021 Mar 22;31(6):1165-1174.e6.

Rasmussen R, Matsumoto A, Dahlstrup Sietam M, Yonehara K. A segregated cortical stream for retinal direction selectivity. Nat Commun. 2020 Feb 11;11(1):831.