Howard Eichenbaum, Ph.D / Lab Chief

Howard Eichenbaum

The hippocampus plays a critical role in memory formation, but our understanding of just what the hippocampus does and how it performs its functions are still issues of considerable controversy. To enhance our knowledge about hippocampal function, we are pursuing a combination of neuropsychological studies of the nature of memory loss in animals with damage to the hippocampus and related cortical areas, and we are pursuing electrophysiological recording studies that seek to determine how information is represented by the hippocampus and associated cortical areas.

Howard Eichenbaum’s NeuroTree

Robert Robinson II, M.A. - Laboratory Manager

Robert Robinson II

My research interests encompass all areas of brain and behavior, as well as many different scientific subjects at large. Presently, I’m managing the Eichenbaum Lab and exploring context-dependent firing in the hippocampus and supporting structures. I’m also actively instructing and advancing educational outreach projects to share our amazing science with the children of the world.

Post Doctoral Associates

Anja Farovik, Ph.D - Senior Post Doctoral Associate

Anja Farovik

My work is centered around understanding the neural network responsible for the formation and retrieval of contextual memory representations. Using electrophysiology techniques to record neuronal activity patterns, current work explores how cells in the prefrontal cortex represent the context in which events happen.

Chris Keene, Ph.D - Post Doctoral Associate

Chris Keene

My current research focuses primarily on the cortico-hippocampal processing stream providing contextual or “where” information to the hippocampus. Using a combination of electrophysiology and lesion techniques, this research will examine how cortical regions such as the entorhinal and retrosplenial cortices interact with the hippocampus and medial temporal lobe during learning and memory.

Benjamin Kraus, Ph.D - Post Doctoral Researcher

Benjamin Kraus

My current research focuses on understanding the neuronal mechanisms used by the hippocampus and the surrounding medial temporal lobe to achieve episodic-like memory. Specifically, I am exploring the context-dependent and sequential activity of hippocampal cell assemblies by performing electrophysiological recordings of dorsal CA1 hippocampal pyramidal cells in rats that are running in place on a treadmill.

Chris MacDonald, Ph.D. - Post Doctoral Associate

Chris MacDonald

Episodic memories are characterized by the temporal organization of events that compose unique experiences. The hippocampus has long been considered important for episodic memory but, until recently, a general mechanism for temporal organization of memories in hippocampal neural networks had not been identified.  However, there are now multiple reports of neural activity in the hippocampal CA1 region that signals the flow of time, and most striking are descriptions of hippocampal ‘time cells’ that fire briefly in sequence during periods between salient events. My current research involves dissecting the medial temporal lobe and associated areas in order to determine how time cells are generated in the hippocampal CA1 region. To this end, my methodological approach features large-scale multi-tetrode electrophysiological recordings to monitor activity from neural ensembles distributed across different brain areas, which more recently, has been combined with techniques that allow for optogenetic control of neural circuits.

Lara Rangel, Ph.D. - Post Doctoral Associate

Lara Rangel

One of the primary goals of my research is to better understand the different mechanisms through which cells in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus can account for differences in spatial and non-spatial features of events, contexts, and their associations. I would like to understand how the representation of these differences at the single cell level ultimately contributes to discrimination abilities in behavior. Moreover, I am interested in understanding how input into the hippocampus is deferentially processed within the dentate gyrus, CA3, and CA1 subregions and how these structures work together in the service of learning. Lastly, I am interested in the rich oscillatory activity of the dentate gyrus, the modulation of these oscillations by learning, and what we can learn from single cell and local field potential relationships within and across structures.

Jon Ruekemann

My research interests concern the nature of the information represented in the ‘object’ and ‘context’ processing streams, and how information from these streams is integrated in the parahippocampal region. To address these issues, my research utilizes a combination of anatomical, electrophysiological and behavioral techniques.

Graduate Students

Audrey Dimauro, B.A. - MD/PH.D. Student

Audrey DiMaruo

I like  different hair color choices.   Mainly because I just like bright, cheery colors.  But it IS fun seeing people’s reactions, then watching them try to explain in intricacies of how they “like it”.

Sam McKenzie, B.A. - Graduate Student

Sam McKenzie

My research interests are: sequence encoding and retrieval, spatial memory, hippocampal models for memory, and the role of reward in information encoding.

Ryan Placer, B.A. - Graduate Student

Ryan Place

Memory is life, as we know it. From sub-cellular processes necessary for enhanced connection, to the systems responsible for lasting cognition, I’d like to better understand how this representation of life is acquired, maintained and recalled. I’m currently fond of assessing the hippocampal formation by employing a combination of in vivo and behavioral techniques. Both up and down stream processing can be cool too.

Nicholas Robinson, B.A. - Graduate Student

Nick Robinson

Nicholas Robinson recently graduated from The University of Edinburgh’s Neuroscience undergraduate program where he developed a particular interest for the encoding, storage and retrieval of episodic memories. He has experience performing lesion studies and in vivo tetrode recordings from the hippocampus of behaving animals. He is also a keen tennis and squash player and enjoys hiking and rock climbing.

Dan Salz, B.A. - Graduate Student

Dan Salz

I’m just an 8-bit guy living in a 128-bit world.  I love science, great food, and great people.

Dan Sheehan, M.A. - Graduate Student

Dan Sheehan

I tend to focus my efforts on all things awesome.  As my graduate career is picking up momentum, awesome things include the ventral hippocampus.