About the Wallis Lab

We are part of the Department of Psychology and Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California at Berkeley. Our research focuses on understanding the functional organization of the frontal cortex at the single neuron level. Our methods use sophisticated behavioral paradigms, multichannel recording and computational analysis of neuronal data. We aim to understand the neuronal mechanisms underlying a number of high-level cognitive and behavioral processes, including decision-making, learning and working memory. The goal of our research is to guide the development of the next generation of treatments for mental illness.

Recent news

Jan 2021: Dr. Thomas Elston has joined the lab as a postdoctoral researcher. Thom receieved his training from Dr. Andreas Nieder. Welcome to the lab Thom!

Nov 2020: Our collaboration with Dr. Bradley Voytek at U.C. San Diego details an algorithmic method for defining the frequency bands in a field potential signal. The paper was published in Nature Neuroscience.

Jul 2020: Our collaboration with Dr. Erin Rich at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine examines the temporal dynamics of neural populations involved in decision-making. The paper was published in eLife.

Jun 2020: Nathan Munet has joined the lab. Nathan is a first year HWNI graduate student. He will be studying how the hippocampus encodes a cognitive map.

Apr 2020: Lauren Meckler has joined the lab as our new Lab Manager.

Jan 2020: Congratulations to Eric. His paper detailing how closed-loop theta microstimulation of orbitofrontal cortex disrupts reward learning has been accepted for publication in Neuron.

May 2019: Congratulations to Celia on passing her qualifying exam.

Mar 2019: Eric published an IEEE paper about our custom shuttle designs, which are avaible for download from the Resources tab. in 2018.

Feb 2019: Joni's TiCS review was voted the the best review in TiCS in 2018.

Sep 2018: New paper from Joni in Trends in Cognitive Sciences where she gets to opine about the benefits of decoding approaches to understanding cognitive processes.

Aug 2018: Our collaboration with Dr. Steven Kennerley at Univeristy College London shows that prefrontal neurons with longer time constants are preferentially recruited in memory process. The paper was published in Nature Communications.

May 2018: Our newest member of the lab is Celia Ford, who is a HWNI graduate student. She will be studying how working memory affects reinforcement learning in prefrontal cortex.

Apr 2018: Feng-kuei published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing that prefrontal neurons encode the spatial and temporal relationships of past, present and future behaviors.

Mar 2018: Feng-kuei published a paper in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience examining how the prefrontal cortex responds to errors in hierarchical behavior.

Wallis Lab

Wallis Lab