Our research

How do we learn and memorize?

How does our brain make sense of the world? And how does the brain transform our daily experiences into lasting memories and knowledge that help us to make well-informed decisions and perform complex tasks? These big questions lie at the heart of our studies into the brain.

The brain is an intricate biological machine that is much more complex than any machine humans have ever built. To study how the brain works — or fails us in case of neurological diseases — we take a look inside and try to reveal the computations performed by the large networks of neurons.

Finding your way: spatial memory and goal-directed navigation

In one line of research, we study how the brain processes information about space, i.e. remembering the locations we visited in the past, orienting ourselves in familiar and novel places, and finding the way to our destination. A large network of brain regions exists to support our sense of direction and place. The activity in the regions (in particular the hippocampus and para-hippocampal cortices) is thought to represent a map of the spaces we have visited in the past (see short article on the spatial code in the brain).

To study spatial memory and navigation, we analyze rodent behavior together with large-scale electrical measurements of cellular activity in the hippocampal-cortical network. Questions we are interested in are: how are spatial maps constructed in the brain and how are the maps used for localization? And, how do spatial representations change as new information is learned and as brain circuits mature and decline across the life span?

Learning while you rest and sleep

Space is an important component of our memories of past events, in addition to the time the event occurred and what people or objects were part of the event (i.e., the where, when and what of episodic memory). Not surprisingly, the same brain regions that process information about space are also involved in general memory function. Interestingly, memories of past events — including the spatial maps — may be queried and refined when we are not actively engaged in a task, such as during a rest break or at night as we sleep. At the level of brain cells, we have observed this as the reactivation of the exact same cells in the same order as during the initial experience (see short article on memory replay). In our research, we are particularly interested in how spatial maps are used for path planning and offline inferences (e.g., during sleep) to support goal-directed navigation.

Explore our contributions
Reward size and memory
Circuits for behavioral flexibility
What is replay good for?

Advances in neurotechnology drive progress in neuroscience

In the Kloosterman Lab, we build new and improved neurotechnologies that can help us to answer our neuroscientific questions. To understand how cells in the brain give rise to cognition and behavior, neuroscientists need tools to study the brain at various levels of detail — from molecular and cellular levels to networks and systems. Driving the development of new tools is the desire to measure the activity of whole brain regions at cellular detail, as well as to perturb and control activity with increasing cellular and temporal specificity. Recent advances in neural probe technology and genetic tools have enabled neuroscientists to address more refined questions about brain function. In our lab, we contribute to the development of new types of brain implants and software tools for the analysis of brain activity and the link the behavior.

In the loop: using real-time feedback to understand the brain’s computations

In our research, we use brain-computer interfaces that manipulate the natural brain dynamics and brain-environment interactions to reveal causal links between neural activity and behavior. For this, we develop software tools and algorithms for the real-time identification and perturbation of specific neural activity patterns. Our group has successfully applied closed-loop approaches to link specific neuronal oscillations in the rodent hippocampus to goal-directed spatial learning and navigation tasks.

Explore our contributions
Brain implants
Neural decoding
Software for closed-loop neuroscience