Our community includes over 60 faculty members in 12 academic departments who deepen our understanding of the brain through neurotechnology innovation and original research. Explore the research interests of Berkeley Neuroscience faculty below, and click on their website links for more information. Current and prospective PhD Program students can click on the box, “Show only Neuroscience PhD Program Faculty,” to see what labs are part of our training program.
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Show only Neuroscience PhD Program Faculty
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Hillel Adesnik
Assistant Professor of Neurobiology
Research Focus: Neural basis of sensation, perception, and action.
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Martin Banks
Professor of Vision Science and Optometry
Research Focus: Visual space perception and sensory combination.
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Helen Bateup
Assistant Professor of Neurobiology
Research Focus: Molecular basis of synapse and circuit changes associated with epilepsy and autism.
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Diana Bautista
Associate Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology, Class of 1943 Memorial Chair, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Scholar
Research Focus: Molecular mechanisms underlying the sensations of itch, touch, and pain.
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George Bentley
Associate Professor of Integrative Biology
Research Focus: Neuroendocrine control of reproductive behaviors, biological rhythms, and neuroplasticity.
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Eric Betzig
Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology, Eugene D. Commins Presidential Chair in Experimental Physics, and Howard Hughes Investigator
Research Focus: Development of new tools for imaging and image analysis to enable biological discovery
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Sonia Bishop
Associate Professor of Psychology
Research Focus: Neural basis of attention, emotion, and anxiety. Individual differences in cognitive control and emotional responsivity.
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Kristofer Bouchard
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Neuroscience
Research Focus: Functional organization and dynamic coordination of sensorimotor networks underlying learned, skilled behaviors.
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Stephen Brohawn
Assistant Professor of Neurobiology
Research Focus: Molecular basis of sensory transduction and electrical signaling, especially mechanosensation.
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Silvia Bunge
Professor of Psychology
Research Focus: Neural mechanisms, development, and plasticity of higher cognitive functions in humans.
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Jose Carmena
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, Chancellor's Professor of Electrical Engineering and Neuroscience
Research Focus: Neural basis of motor skill learning. Application to neural prostheses and development of neural dust technology.
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Christopher Chang
Professor of Chemistry, Class of 1942 Chair of Chemistry, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator
Research Focus: Chemical tools for imaging and optogenetics in neurobiology.
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John Clarke
Professor of the Graduate School Physics
Research Focus: Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices such as ultralow-frequency MRI.
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Anne Collins
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Research Focus: Computational modeling of human learning, decision-making, and executive functions.
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Emily Cooper
Assistant Professor Vision Science and Optometry
Research Focus: Computational modeling of visual perception.
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Mark D’Esposito
Professor of Psychology
Research Focus: Neural basis of high-level cognitive processes such as working memory and executive control.
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Yang Dan
Professor of Neurobiology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator
Research Focus: Neural circuits controlling sleep; mechanisms of executive control.
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Michael DeWeese
Associate Professor of Physics and the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience
Research Focus: Neural mechanisms underlying auditory processing and selective attention in the cerebral cortex and artificial neural networks.
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Andrew Dillin
Professor of Genetics, Genomics and Development, Thomas and Stacey Siebel Distinguished Chair in Stem Cell Biology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator
Research Focus: Genetic and molecular mechanisms regulating aging and aging-related disease.
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David Feinberg
Adjunct Professor of Neuroscience
Research Focus: MRI technology development, mapping columnar and visual circuitry, modeling neurovascular coupling.
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Daniel Feldman
Professor of Neurobiology
Research Focus: Sensory processing and plasticity in the somatosensory cortex.
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Marla Feller
Professor of Neurobiology
Research Focus: Functional development and organization of neural circuits in the retina.
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Howard Fields
Professor of Neurology UCSF, Adjunct Professor of Neuroscience UC Berkeley
Research Focus: Mesolimbic circuits involved in goal directed behaviors, opioid regulation of synaptic function.
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John Flannery
Professor of Vision Science and Optometry
Research Focus: Gene therapies for inherited retinal degenerations.
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David Foster
Associate Professor of Psychology
Research Focus: Encoding of spatial memory and navigation toward rewards by neural ensembles in the hippocampus.
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Jack Gallant
Professor of Psychology, Chancellor’s Professor of Psychology and Class of 1940 Endowed Chair
Research Focus: Identifying cortical maps to discover how the brain represents information about the world and its own mental states.
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Corey Goodman
Adjunct Professor of Neuroscience
Research Focus: Translation of biomedical discoveries into therapeutics for human health.
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Ming Hsu
Associate Professor of the Haas School of Business
Research Focus: Neural basis of economic and consumer decision-making.
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Ehud Isacoff
Professor of Neurobiology, Evan Rauch Chair in Neuroscience
Research Focus: Mechanisms of ion channel function, synapse development, plasticity, and neural circuit function.
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Richard Ivry
Professor of Psychology
Research Focus: Cognition and action, with an emphasis on how people select actions, learn skills, and produce coordinated movements.
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Lucia Jacobs
Professor of Psychology
Research Focus: Cognitive strategies and olfactory cues for spatial navigation in changing environments.
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William Jagust
Professor of Public Health and Neuroscience
Research Focus: Anatomic, biochemical, and neurochemical bases of brain aging and dementia.
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Na Ji
Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Physics
Research Focus: Novel imaging methods to understand the brain.
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Daniela Kaufer
Acting Associate Dean and Professor of Integrative Biology, Class of 1943 Memorial Chair
Research Focus: Molecular mechanisms of brain plasticity in response to stress and neurological insults.
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Stanley Klein
Professor of Vision Science and Optometry
Research Focus: Psychophysical investigation of visual processing, and the role of perceptual learning, attention and binocular interactions.
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Robert Knight
Professor of Psychology
Research Focus: Neural coding underlying goal-directed behavior and development of brain-machine interfaces for motor and language prostheses.
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Richard Kramer
Professor of Neurobiology, CH and Annie Li Chair in Molecular Biology of Diseases
Research Focus: Novel chemical reagents for non-invasive optical sensing and manipulation of ion channels and synapses.
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Lance Kriegsfeld
Professor of Psychology
Research Focus: Brain and endocrine regulation of circadian rhythms.
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Stephan Lammel
Assistant Professor of Neurobiology
Research Focus: Midbrain dopamine circuits in reward-based behaviors and pathological changes in addiction, depression and schizophrenia.
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Markita Landry
Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Research Focus: Exploiting nanomaterials to probe and characterize complex biological systems at the nano-scale; nanosensors for brain chemistry.
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Dennis Levi
Professor of Vision Science and Optometry
Research Focus: Neural plasticity in human vision and recovery from amblyopia.
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Lexin Li
Professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology
Research Focus: Statistical neuroimaging analysis, brain connectivity analysis, imaging causal inference, multimodal and longitudinal imaging analysis, and imaging tensor regression.
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Chunlei Liu
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Research Focus: MRI technology development for the study of neural circuits and modulation.
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Ellen Lumpkin
Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology
Research Focus: To elucidate force transduction mechanisms that initiate the senses of touch and pain.
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Michel Maharbiz
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Research Focus: Building micro- and nano- scale machine interfaces to cells and organisms, including development of neural dust technology.
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Evan Miller
Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology
Research Focus: Development and application of molecular tools for studying neuroscience.
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John Ngai
Professor of Neurobiology, Coates Family Professor of Neuroscience
Research Focus: Development and regeneration of the olfactory system; genomics technologies to characterize neuronal diversity in the cortex.
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Bruno Olshausen
Professor of Vision Science and Optometry
Research Focus: Computational models of sensory coding and visual perception.
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Geoff Owen
Professor Emeritus of Neurobiology
Research Focus: Comprehensive theory of retinal image processing.
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Mu-ming Poo
Professor Emeritus of Neurobiology
Research Focus: Formation and plasticity of synapses, and activity-dependent modification of neural circuits.
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Teresa Puthussery
Assistant Professor of Vision Science and Optometry
Research Focus: Processing of visual signals in the healthy and diseased retina.
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Austin Roorda
Professor of Vision Science and Optometry
Research Focus: Development of adaptive optics to track, measure, and correct the eye's imperfections.
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Kaoru Saijo
Assistant Professor of Immunology and Pathogenesis
Research Focus: Microglial cell maintenance of homeostasis in the brain and sex dimorphism in diseases.
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David Schaffer
Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Research Focus: Engineering stem cell and gene therapeutics.
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Kristin Scott
Professor of Genetics, Genomics and Development
Research Focus: Taste detection, processing, and behaviors.
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Karthik Shekhar
Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Research Focus: Single-Cell genomics and Statistical Inference
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Arthur Shimamura
Professor Emeritus of Psychology
Research Focus: Human memory in learning and aging; how movies drive our sensory, conceptual, and emotional processes.
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Michael Silver
Professor of Vision Science and Optometry
Research Focus: Neurophysiological and neurochemical substrates of human visual perception, attention, and learning.
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Friedrich Sommer
Adjunct Professor of Neuroscience
Research Focus: Theoretical principles of learning and perception.
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Mark Tanouye
Professor of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management
Research Focus: Novel genetic approaches to study the causes of epilepsy and other nervous system disorders.
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Rowland Taylor
Professor of Vision Science and Optometry
Research Focus: Structure and function of neural circuits in the retina.
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Frédéric Theunissen
Professor of Psychology
Research Focus: Perception of complex sounds.
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Matthew Walker
Professor of Psychology
Research Focus: The impact of sleep on human health and disease.
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Joni Wallis
Professor of Psychology
Research Focus: Neuronal mechanisms underlying high-level cognitive and behavioral processes.
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Kevin Weiner
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Research Focus: Models to explain how brain structure and function contribute to measurable behaviors (e.g. face perception)
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Gerald Westheimer
Professor of the Graduate School Division of Neurobiology
Research Focus: Perceptual learning in spatial visual tasks.
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Linda Wilbrecht
Associate Professor of Psychology
Research Focus: Experience dependent plasticity and the development of circuits involved in value based decision making.
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Ke Xu
Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Research Focus: Super-resolution fluorescence microscopy to interrogate cellular processes at the nanoscale.
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Michael Yartsev
Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, Neuroscience, and the Berkeley Nanosciences and Nanoengineering Institute
Research Focus: Neural basis of complex spatial and acoustic behaviors.
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