System Neuroscience

Formed in 2002, this group was the pioneer of systems neuroscience and primate electrophysiology in Iran. Past and present researchers of this group make a strong collaborative network to span a broad range of topics in neural sciences, including mechanisms of object recognition, sensory system, attention, perception, and cognition.
This group's focus is identifying the neural circuits underlying fundamental perceptual and cognitive functions. Our research principally involves studying the activity of single neurons, and large populations of neurons in sensory and motor structures within the brain. We are interested in developing and implementing electrophysiological methods in fundamental problems of systems and circuit-level neuroscience. To this end, we are conducting parallel behavioral and physiological experiments in human and animals (monkeys and rats) that are trained to perform selected cognitive tasks. By recording the activity of cortical neurons during performance of such tasks, we gain insights into the relationship of neuronal activity and animal’s behavior. A mixture of electrophysiological, behavioral, and computational techniques are used to test precise hypotheses concerning the relationship of brain and behavior.

Our in vivo electrophysiology laboratories comprises electrophysiology recording rigs for acute studies in monkeys and rates. This including mutli-channel real-time neural and cortical recording (Spike and local field potential (LFP)) system and access to an eyeLink 1000 for eye tracking.