We supported Professor Michael Häusser from 2001 to 2013 to expand the research and technology in his laboratory, in particular in the area of high resolution investigation of circuits.

Under the leadership of Professor Michael Häusser, the Neural Computation Group at University College London aims to understand computation on the level of identified cells in certain circuits of the mammalian brain. The team of post-doctoral researchers and students are working at the interface between the individual cell and circuit levels of nervous system function. They have a special interest in the properties of neuronal dendrites, which are the branched projections that receive the vast majority of input from other cells.

The laboratory now utilises the focused ion beam-scanning electron microscope to study circuits – a technique that works by removing successive ultra-thin sections from a block of tissue. This is one way to image and analyse the three-dimensional structure of neural circuits.

The group works closely with computational neuroscientists (including Professor Peter Latham at the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit) to develop models based on experimental results to deepen their understanding and provide new experimentally testable predictions.