Christopher Pack, PhD
Pack’s laboratory studies the cerebral cortex with the goal of finding out how neurons communicate information about the visual world. They use microelectrode recordings to listen to individual neurons as they talk to their neighbors. These conversations are a type of code, in effect the software that makes the brain’s hardware capable of vision. Part of this code can be understood in a straightforward way if one knows the statistics of the visual input. The relationship between these statistics and neural activity can be determined with computational methods. One of the goals of this research is to develop a quantitative understanding of how these different aspects of neural activity relate to memory, perception and behavior. They are particularly interested in the ways in which subjects use eye movements to scan their surroundings.
Krause, M.R., Zanos, T.P., Csorba, B.A., Pilly, P.K., Choe, J., Phillips, M.E., Datta, A., and Pack, C.C. (2017) Transcranial direct current stimulation facilitates associative learning and alters functional connectivity in the primate brain. Current Biology, 27, 3086-3096.
Neupane, S., Guitton, D., and Pack, C.C. (2017) Coherent oscillations link current and future receptive fields during saccades. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 29, 5979-5985.
Liu, L.D. and Pack, C.C. (2017) The contribution of cortical area MT to visual motion perception depends on training. Neuron, 95, 436-446.
Liu, L.D., Haefner, R., and Pack, C.C. (2016) Neural basis of the spatial suppression of visual motion perception. eLife, 5, e16167.
Cui, Y. Liu, L.D., McFarland, J.M., Pack, C.C., and Butts, D.A. (2016) Inferring cortical variability from local field potentials. Journal of Neuroscience, 3, 4121-4135.
Zanos, T.P., Mineault, P.J., Nasiotis, K., Guitton, D., and Pack, C.C. (2015) A sensorimotor role for traveling waves in primate visual cortex. Neuron, 85, 615-627.
Jadauji, J., Djordjevic, J., Lundström, J., and Pack, C.C. (2012) Modulation of olfactory processing by visual cortex stimulation. Journal of Neuroscience, 32, 3095-3100.
Mineault, P.J., Khawaja, F.A., Butts, D.A., and Pack, C.C. (2012) Hierarchical processing of complex motion stimuli along the dorsal visual pathway. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 109, E972-980.
