Neural mechanisms of adaptive timing

Timing is woven into everything we do. We study how neural circuits learn, adapt, and express timing through their dynamics.

Overview

Acting at the right moment requires more than an internal clock. The brain must learn when events tend to occur, adapt as circumstances change, and translate these expectations into neural activity. We pursue this from three directions. First, we study how humans and animals learn the temporal structure of their environment, and how this experience shapes when they act. Second, we investigate how context reconfigures neural circuits, allowing the same brain to time its behavior flexibly across situations. Third, we develop theoretical and computational tools, from dynamical systems models to manifold learning, that reveal how timing is written into the dynamics and geometry of neural populations.

A Multidisciplinary Approach to Neural Timing

We address these questions across levels of analysis. Behavioral experiments in humans and animals reveal how temporal expectations are learned and how context reshapes them. Neurophysiological recordings in animal models let us follow these processes in single neurons, microcircuits, and populations across the cortex, thalamus, and cerebellum. Theory and computational models, from recurrent networks to manifold learning, link behavior to neural activity and test which mechanisms could explain what we observe. With clinical collaborators, we also study how timing changes when these circuits are compromised, revealing which ones are essential.