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Richard J. Krauzlis

 

Richard J. Krauzlis

Richard J. Krauzlis

Associate Professor and Frederick B. Rentschler Developmental Chair
Systems Neurobiology Laboratories

"My laboratory investigates the brain mechanisms that link perceptual and cognitive processing to behavioral responses. The long-term goal of our research is to understand how neural circuits distributed across multiple brain regions coordinate even simple motor outputs like eye movements to higher-order processes such as attention, perception, and executive control."

Our eyes are constantly on the move, whether to follow a moving object or to scan our surroundings. These movements are controlled by the superior colliculus, a brain region that has long been thought of as an oculomotor reflex center that allows the eyes and head to turn swiftly either toward or away from the sights and sounds in our environment. Recent findings, however, have suggested that it does more than send the motor control commands that orient the head and eyes toward something seen or heard.

Historically, physiological studies of eye movement control have relied on individual spots of light representing visual targets, but a single dot on a computer screen can only reveal so much about the brain's function. To uncover whether the superior colliculus helps direct visual attention, Krauzlis and his team adopted a more "naturalistic" approach. They designed a series of experiments where the study subjects had to track the invisible center of a visual target consisting of two peripheral features—much like following an airplane guided by its wing lights in the night sky—while the researchers measured the activity of neurons in the superior colliculus.

Their experiments revealed that beyond its classic role in motor control, the primate superior colliculus signals to other brain areas the location of behaviorally relevant visual objects by providing a "neural pointer" to these objects. When Krauzlis and his team temporarily inactivated a subset of superior colliculus neurons, the subjects still tracked well, but their gaze consistently and predictably shifted away from the center. The latter confirmed that the superior colliculus plays an active role in analyzing the current environment and deciding whether one specific aspect is worth paying closer attention to than another.

This information is a fundamental step toward developing better clinical approaches to complex disorders of attention and impulse control, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism.

Lab Photo

Left to right:
Karine von Bochmann, Eileen Boehle, Sam Nummela, Rich Krauzlis, Ziad Hafed, Shaun Mahaffy, Alexandre Zenon, Lee Lovejoy Not Pictured: Natalie Dill

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Richard J. Krauzlis

Faculty

Richard J. Krauzlis

Richard J. Krauzlis

Associate Professor and Frederick B. Rentschler Developmental Chair
Systems Neurobiology Laboratories

Richard J. Krauzlis is an associate professor in the Systems Neurobiology Laboratories. Work in his laboratory is aimed at understanding the brain mechanisms that link motor control to sensory and cognitive processing, using a variety of state-of-the-art techniques to manipulate and monitor neural activity. The long-term goal of his research is to understand how neural circuits distributed across multiple brain regions coordinate even simple motor outputs like eye movements to higher-order processes such as attention, perception, and executive control. This information is a fundamental step toward developing better clinical approaches to complex disorders of attention and impulse control, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism.

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