Cognitive Neurophysiology Lab: Understanding Cognitive Control Impairment

Liya Ma

Principal Investigator

I did my doctoral studies on neural coding of sequential instrumental actions at the University of British Columbia, with Drs. Jeremy Seamans and Anthony Phillips. With the support of a CIHR Fellowship and BrainsCAN Tier I Fellowship, I studied how frontoparietal cortical activities support cognitive control in the primate brain, with Dr. Stefan Everling at Western University. Supported by a Christine Mohrmann Fellowship, I set up my first lab in the Donders Centre for Neuroscience at Radboud University in the Netherlands to study the neural correlates underlying flexible decision making. Now I continue this line of work in a new world primate model, the common marmoset, at the Centre for Vision Research, York University in Toronto, Canada. I am a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Neurophysiology.

Francesca Abela

PhD Candidate (Donders Centre for Neuroscience, Radboud University)

I am investigating how the value of a choice is represented and flexibly updated in key brain regions, using a combination of high-density electrophysiological recording, probablistic reversal learning task in mice, and in silico modeling.

Marium Alvi

Master's Student (York University)

As the 'marmoset whisperer' of the lab, I trained all my animals to flexibly switch multiple times among several rules in a touchscreen-based task. I will use this task to understand the dynamic changes in strategies adopted by the animals using reinforcement learning models, and the neural correlates for flexible decision-making using electrophysiology.

Ryley Nathaniel

Master's Student (York University)

As an Master's student, I am working on the behaviour and brain physiology of marmosets during an inhibitory control task. As a side project, I work on a previously recorded dataset from rats performing a win-shift/win-stay task, during which large ensembles of neurons were recorded from 2 distinct areas in their frontal cortex. I previously completed an Honours Thesis looking at the effects of music and emotionality on the memory of images. My interests include neuroscience, physiology and medical anthropology.

Shuyuan Lyu

Master's Student (York University)

In collaboration with Dr. Peter Kohler, my thesis project examines the neural correlates for symmetry and other mid-level visual processes in the marmosets.