Yau Lab employs a number of complementary approaches to characterize behavior and investigate nervous system function.
Psychophysics
In careful behavioral studies, we quantify how observers perceive and judge sensory cues.
Modeling
To infer the computations the nervous system may implement to support sensorimotor behavior, we develop quantitative models to relate sensory cues to behavior and cortical activity.
Neurophysiology
Recording spiking activity from single neurons and local field potential from neural populations allows us to establish how sensory cues are encoded and transformed in the nervous system.
Neuroimaging
Non-invasive measurements of BOLD signal changes allow us to identify brain regions whose activity is associated with sensorimotor processing. Computational neuroimaging approaches enable us to predict brain response patterns and test hypotheses for population-level response properties.
Non-invasive brain stimulation
Manipulating brain activity using transcranial magnetic stimulation allows us to probe the functional contributions of brain regions.
Simultaneous TMS-fMRI
Interleaving TMS pulses with image acquisition during fMRI scans allows us to characterize the distributed consequences of targeted brain stimulation.
Virtual reality
Performing experiments in virtual environments provides unique opportunities to manipulate sensory cues.
Motion tracking
Cutting edge methods for estimating and tracking limb and eye movements provide detailed characterizations of sensorimotor performance during natural behaviors.
Yau Lab 