Scott Brincat
Scott Brincat is a postdoc in Earl Miller’s lab, working in collaboration with Frank Guenther and Mikhail Panko. His general interest is in understanding how neural circuits and networks encode, consolidate, and recall new memories. Their current CELEST project aims to quantitatively compare the performance of different chronic recording technologies in a behaving macaque model. A particular focus of this work is on determining which aspects of neural signals are stable over long periods of time. One long-term goal of this work, in line with CELEST’s focus on technology, is to develop high performance brain-machine interfaces for human patients that can stably decode neural signals over time with little experimenter intervention.
Going forward, another goal of this work is to leverage this technology to understand how neural codes change over time with learning and long-term memory consolidation, consistent with CELEST’s focus on learning. CELEST funding has been instrumental in bringing together the experimental expertise of the Miller Lab and the technological expertise of the Guenther Lab for this project.