“Science is built up of facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.”
– Henri Poincaré
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Main Menu - Block
- Overview
- Anatomy and Histology
- Cryo-Electron Microscopy
- Electron Microscopy
- Flow Cytometry
- Fly Facility
- Gene Targeting and Transgenics
- Immortalized Cell Line Culture
- Integrative Imaging
- Janelia Experimental Technology
- Mass Spectrometry
- Media Prep
- Molecular Genomics
- Primary & iPS Cell Culture
- Project Pipeline Support
- Project Technical Resources
- Quantitative Genomics
- Scientific Computing Software
- Scientific Computing Systems
- Viral Tools
- Vivarium
Neuroscience needs testable theories that link biological complexity to specific brain functions across multiple spatial and temporal scales. We integrate theoretical work and experimental collaborations to build, test, and refine such theories.
The brain’s fine-scale structure is naturally described in the language of physics, biochemistry, and cellular biology, whereas its large-scale structure is more easily framed by concepts from psychology, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. This is a very exciting time for neuroscience because experimenters are increasingly able to measure circuit-level phenomena that are poised to bridge the gap between low-level and high-level descriptions of the brain. Coordinated theoretical progress is needed to transform these data into hypotheses, theories, and principles of brain function.
Our research combines first-principles theory, phenomenological modeling, data analysis, and experimental design to build theoretical frameworks and data-driven models that advance the frontiers of neuroscience. We seek a multiscale understanding of the brain and ask questions that link across scales. We also seek general principles, which should illuminate the details of specific systems and direct broad thinking about the brain. Our integrative goals lead us to work on a wide variety of neuroscience problems, brain systems, and animal models. These efforts are closely coordinated with experimental work from collaborators at Janelia and beyond.
James Fitzgerald is now an Associate Professor at Northwestern University and can be reached at here.