Speakers > Jens Kemkow
Jens Kremkow is currently a group leader in the Neuroscience Research Center at the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, the Institute for Theoretical Biology at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Einstein Center for Neurosciences Berlin. He runs the Integrative Visual Neuroscience Lab and uses both computational and experimental approaches to study sensory systems in the brain. In his Ph.D. he worked together with Ad Aertsen (University of Freiburg, Germany) and Guillaume Masson (CNRS Marseille, France) and developed computational models to study how correlated excitation and inhibition in neuronal circuits provides a mechanism for sparse coding during natural vision. In his postdoc in the group of Jose-Manuel Alonso (State University of New York - College of Optometry, New York, USA) he studied the visual thalamus and cortex using in vivo experiments and models. One of his projects revealed the principles underlying sensory map topography in primary visual cortex. Following his stay in New York, he joined the lab of James Poulet (MDC Berlin) and Richard Kempter (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) as an independent postdoc to study cortical neuronal circuits in rodents.
Sensory maps in visual cortex and superior colliculus
The primary visual cortex (V1) and the superior colliculus (SC) in the midbrain are two important brain regions for visual processing and visually guided behaviors. A hallmark of V1 and SC is that the visual scene is organization in topographic maps within these circuits. Yet important differences between the sensory maps in both brain structures exists and the differential roles of V1 and SC in visual processing is still not fully understood. Revealing the functional organization of the thalamocortical and retinocollicular systems is an important step towards understanding the principles that underlie these sensory maps which in turn will provide important insights into how visual information is processed within them. We recently discovered that high-density electrodes (Neuropixels probes) simultaneously capture the activity of retinal ganglion cell axons and their postsynaptic target neurons in the superior colliculus, in vivo. This novel approach allowed us to study how axons from retinal ganglion cells organize within SC and reveal how retinal activity is integrated at the level of midbrain neurons in mice. In my talk I will present these experimental results together with a recent modeling study that together show that the afferents in the thalamocortical and retinocollicular system follow distinct wiring rules that shape the sensory maps in both brain structures.
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