Tirin Moore

Professor Tirin Moore, Stanford University, US

Coding of Abstract Rules by Distinct Neurons in Primate Visual Cortex

16:00 - 17:00 BST, Wednesday 14th April 

Biography

Professor Moore’s laboratory studies neural mechanisms of visual-motor integration and the neural basis of cognition (e.g. attention).  In addition, his laboratory develops novel and more powerful approaches to systems-level neurobiology. Dr. Moore received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1995, where he was a National Science Foundation graduate fellow in the laboratory of Charles Gross.

He was then a postdoctoral fellow at M.I.T. in the laboratory of Peter Schiller, where he studied modulation of visual cortical signals during visually guided eye movements. Later, as a research scientist at Princeton, he began studying neural mechanisms controlling visual selective attention.  In 2003, he started his own laboratory at Stanford, where he is currently a Professor of Neurobiology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator. Dr. Moore has been a Sloan fellow, a Pew Scholar, a McKnight Scholar, and received a Career Award from the National Science Foundation.

Before becoming an HHMI investigator, he was an HHMI Early Career Scientist. In 2009, he received a Troland Research Award, and in 2021, the Pradel Research Award, both from the National Academy of Sciences for his work on visual attention. Professor Moore was elected a member the National Academy of Medicine in 2017.

Abstract

I will discuss our recent evidence showing that information about abstract rules can be decoded from neuronal activity in primate visual cortex even in the absence of sensory stimulation. Furthermore, that rule information is greatest among neurons with the least visual activity and the weakest coupling to local neuronal networks. In addition, I will talk about recent developments in large-scale neurophysiological techniques in nonhuman primates.

Additional websites

See Tirin Moore's lab website here