Joaquin González, Ph.D.

Research

My research will explore how the brain consolidates memories during sleep. For an animal to remember something it saw, different neural pathways send information about the object and its location to the hippocampus, the region of the brain that initially forms new associations. There, the information is processed and sent to the neocortex for long-term storage—a process directed by the reactivation of the associated hippocampal circuits while the animal sleeps. Now, using advanced methods in data analysis and techniques for monitoring and manipulating neuronal activity, I will identify how the hippocampus interacts with the neocortex to consolidate new information without disrupting old memories—and determine how activating or silencing these circuits during sleep alters the animals’ recall. This work will illuminate how memories are formed and could suggest ways to improve learning.