How the brain processes visual information across cortex in mice
Official title: Visual representations across cortical areas
Funded at University of California Santa Barbara · NIH-11380042 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project studies how different brain areas in mice represent visual scenes and guide visually guided behavior using advanced imaging and naturalistic virtual reality.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | University of California Santa Barbara NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Santa Barbara, United States) |
| Project start | September 1, 2023 |
| Project end | June 30, 2027 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $388,750 |
| NIH project number | 5R01EY035378-04 |
| Project ID | NIH-11380042 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
This research is in mice; human relevance is conceptual, but it informs principles of visual processing that may benefit people with related visual or neural processing conditions in the long term.
✕Less likely to help
Direct benefits to human patients are unlikely during this animal study.
What this research studies
Researchers will map how visual information is represented across primary and higher visual areas in behaving mice, using large-field two-photon calcium imaging and naturalistic virtual reality. They will analyze how neural activity in different cortical areas relates to complex visual stimuli and adaptive behaviors, and use new statistical methods to infer population coding and circuit organization. The work builds on novel tools from the lab to capture real-time brain activity and apply rigorous analyses to understand how components of visual scenes are represented across the cortex. The findings could illuminate fundamental principles of how the brain translates visual input into guided actions.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: A better understanding of how visual information is processed in the brain could inform future treatments and technologies for vision-related disorders and improve brain-inspired computing approaches.
How similar studies have gone: Similar lines of work using advanced imaging and population coding analyses have yielded meaningful insights into cortical representations in animals.
Where this research is happening
-
University of California Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Smith, Spencer Lavere — University of California Santa Barbara
- Study coordinator: Smith, Spencer Lavere
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.