Neuro-CoE Seminar Series

The Midbrain Reticular Formation (MRF) is the third largest subcortical region by volume in the mouse and interconnects with diverse areas of the forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain. Despite its central position, it has been overlooked in studies of perception and cognition. In this talk, I will describe our work to dissect the role and organization of the MRF in visual decision-making using large-scale electrophysiology, modern anatomical approaches including spatial transcriptomics, and a novel context-dependent behavioral task for mice. These approaches reveal the MRF as a critical hub in the distributed circuits underlying our ability to flexibly interact with our world.

About the Speaker

Dr. Nick Steinmetz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurobiology & Biophysics at the University of Washington in Seattle and a member of the International Brain Laboratory. Prior to starting his own lab, he completed a PhD in Neuroscience at Stanford University studying visual attention with Dr. Tirin Moore and Dr. Kwabena Boahen. As a postdoc, he worked on Neuropixels probe development and distributed coding in the mouse brain at University College London with Dr. Kenneth Harris and Dr. Matteo Carandini.

The Steinmetz Lab focuses on understanding the neural circuits and systems that underlie perception and cognition across the brain. They approach these problems with a combination of large-scale electrophysiology with Neuropixels probes, calcium imaging across neocortical areas, and systematic optogenetic manipulations, all in combination with visual decision-making tasks for mice. Dr. Steinmetz’s work has been recognized with the Pew Biomedical Scholar award, the Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship in Neuroscience, and an NSF CAREER award.