Thomas Mrsic-Flogel received his B.A. and D.Phil from Oxford University. He did postdoctoral work with Tobias Bonhoeffer at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Munich. In 2007, he started his own group as a Wellcome Trust fellow at University College London, and then became associate professor at University of Basel. In 2016, he was appointed the director of the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour at University College London.
Mrsic-Flogel’s research aims to understand the fundamental principles of neural circuit organization and how this organization relates to the computations that support sensory and behavioral function. The approach his team takes is to (1) record activity in identified neurons in large ensembles to uncover the computations taking place during sensory processing and sensory-guided behaviors, and (2) understand how these computations arise from the neural hardware: from the synaptic interactions between identified cell types that differ in the patterns of input and output connectivity.
For this purpose, the lab focuses on sensory processing in visual cortex and connected brain areas of the mouse using a combination of methods, including two-photon calcium imaging in anesthetized and behaving mice, in vitro whole-cell recordings, in vivo whole-cell and extracellular recordings, optogenetics, genetic labeling and anatomical tracing, single-cell transcriptional profiling, visual behavioral tasks, and computational modeling.
Current Project: International Brain Lab