Loren Frank studies how neural circuit activity and plasticity underlie both learning and the ability to use learned information to make decisions. Frank and his team focus particularly on the circuitry of the hippocampus and anatomically related regions. Working in awake, behaving rodents, they use a combination of techniques, including large-scale multielectrode recording, real-time signal processing, and targeted optogenetics to understand how the brain learns, remembers, and decides. Their work may advance understanding of similar processes in humans, as there are many similarities in memory processes across rats and humans.
Loren Frank’s HHMI lab at UCSF has pioneered an ambitious framework for sharing vast neuroscience datasets and complicated analysis methods, a step towards tipping the culture of science towards more effective and fruitful collaboration. As a rat approaches a maze juncture, neural activity rapidly cycles between two sets of cells. The discovery suggests the rodents are envisioning turning left or right. A similar phenomenon may underlie how humans make decisions.