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Research Groups
Sensorimotor Integration

About

Chiappe Lab

Chiappe Lab

Our goal is to understand the fundamental principles for the function and organization of neural circuits involved in estimating an animal’s own movement, especially in the context of visually guided locomotion. Many basic functions of our brain, from motor control, to more cognitive operations such as navigation, critically depend on self-movement estimation. We investigate which circuits are involved in this representation, and what computations these circuits perform. In addition, we aim to identify the activity dynamics and mechanisms by which these computations are generated.

Our strategy focuses on connecting neural activity dynamics to the locomotive behavior of the fruitfly, Drosophila melanogaster. We employ multiple methods to record and reversible perturb neural activity in behaving flies, to analyze the structure of interconnected neurons, to quantify different aspects of the fly’s locomotive behavior, and to model functional networks. This multidisciplinary approach, together with the ever-expanding genetic toolkit of the fruitfly, allows us to find mechanistic explanations for how multisensory and sensorimotor integration processes in the brain are used to guide adaptive behavior.

INFO

Get in touch

To find out more about our lab, contact Eugenia Chiappe via email.

Lab Webpage

Chiappe Lab

Projects

Chiappe Lab

Know our Projects

Sensory processing and motor actions are intimately linked in many aspects of brain function. Examples include active sensing, goal-directed locomotion and motor learning. We use these behavioral contexts to investigate the underlying operational principles of sensorimotor processing.
Our projects are divided in three inter-related lines of research:

Team

Chiappe Lab

Know our Team

Eugenia Chiappe

Principal Investigator

André Marques

2017 INDP PhD Student

Claire Rusch

Postdoctoral Researcher

Corinna Gebehart

Postdoctoral Researcher

Martina Canova

Research Assistant

Mert Erginkaya

2012 INDP PhD Student

Miguel Paço

2017 INDP PhD Student

Nélia Varela

Senior Research Assistant

Nuno Rito

2017 INDP PhD Student

Tomás Cruz

2014 INDP PhD Student

Publications

Chiappe Lab

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