Our latest publication is out in The Journal of Neuroscience (10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1820-24.2025)!

In this study, we used a classic approach—lesion techniques—to uncover distinct behavioral consequences of damaging the motor cortex versus the dorsolateral striatum in rats performing a simple reaction time task. Notably, we found that striatum-lesioned rats developed permanent deficits in waiting, highlighting the striatum’s crucial role in balancing waiting and responding during reaction time behavior.

This publication is our first paper in this field—and there are more to come!

We were thrilled to have Dr. David Robbe from The Institute of Mediterranean Neurobiology (INMED) visit us! He gave an inspiring talk about the striatum and its role in controlling effort. We also had a great time discussing topics like the striatum, animal behavior, and interval timing. David shared valuable insights and provided helpful feedback on our projects.

Karel visits the lab.

We attended the first Chang Hsiang-Tong Brain Science Symposium held in Shanghai. We presented our work on striatal opto-manipulation, secondary motor cortex perturbation, motor cortex coding and stability, and the effect of mPFC inactivation/lesion on learning reaction time behavior.

 We presented our research on the role of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in learning a reaction time task at the 8th Computational Properties of Prefrontal Cortex Workshop in Bethesda. Our presentation garnered important feedback from leading scientists in the field of reaction time behaviors.