Assistant Professor, Department of Neuroscience
190 Rightmire Hall
1060 Carmack Road
Columbus, OH 43210
614-292-5113
haesemeyer.1@osu.edu
Research Focus
Our lab is interested in how brains represent the environment and how they use computational strategies to transform sensation into adaptive behaviors. To this end we use larval zebrafish as a model, in which we can use optical indicators of neural activity to study the activity of each neuron in the brain as a fish virtually behaves under a microscope. We specifically focus on thermoregulation which is critical for the survival of all animals from worms to humans. Here, we could previously show through circuit and artificial neural network modeling how larval zebrafish sense temperature and transform this sensation into behavior to avoid hot waters. We are now investigating the biophysical mechanisms of this transformation and how computation is influenced by internal states.
Approaches
Our research involves gathering large behavioral and neural activity data sets in behaving larval zebrafish. Through machine learning techniques, we use these data to constrain models that try to explain how somatosensory stimuli affect larval zebrafish behavior in a state-dependent manner.
Education and Training
PhD: Institute of Molecular Pathology, Vienna Austria
Postdoc: Harvard University