Close
NPP Seminar: Dr Sepiedeh Keshavarzi, University College London
16 November 2022, 1:00 pm–2:00 pm
Title: 'Integration of head and visual motion for perception and spatial navigation’
Event Information
Open to
- UCL staff | UCL students | UCL alumni
Availability
- Yes
Organiser
-
Charlette Bent-Gayle
Location
-
G46 H O Schild Pharmacology LT,Medical Sciences and AnatomyGower StreetLondonWC1E 6BTUnited Kingdom
Abstract: To successfully navigate the environment, animals rely on their ability to continuously track their heading direction and speed. In this talk, I will present our recent data on sensory computations that underlie head motion coding in the rodent brain. Focusing on the retrosplenial cortex, I will show how the integration of vestibular and visual cues can allow accurate estimation of head velocity during navigation. I will then discuss these data in the context of retrosplenial cortex connectivity and further present our ongoing work on building population-level analytical models to understand motion computations across cortical and subcortical networks.
Academic Host: Andrew MacAskill
About the Speaker
Sepiedeh Keshavarzi
Senior Research Fellow at University College London
Sepiedeh obtained her Medical Doctorate from Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran and her PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Queensland in Australia, where she studied the organisation of olfactory amygdala circuits with Pankaj Sah. She then joined Troy Margrie’s lab at UCL as a postdoctoral fellow. Sepiedeh studies how the brain combines vestibular and visual signals to keep track of one’s own motion and orientation. Her work is particularly focused on neural circuits engaging the retrosplenial and visual cortices. She uses two photon calcium imaging and electrophysiological techniques to record the activity of cortical neurons in head fixed and freely moving mice. She also investigates the functional properties of these neurons in the context of their input connectivity using viral tracing and whole brain imaging techniques. The findings of her research will help better understand the neural basis of motion perception and spatial navigation.
More about Sepiedeh Keshavarzi