Faculty Profiles

« Return to Faculty List

Thomas J. Anastasio Associate Professor of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, Neuroscience, Beckman Institute, and Biophysics Ph.D. 1986, University of Texas at Galveston Neural network dynamics Thomas J. Anastasio 4165 Beckman, MC-251 405 N. Mathews Urbana, IL 61801 217-244-2895 tja@uiuc.edu

The aim of my research is to understand the dynamics of real neural networks. Our focus is on the neural network that mediates the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR), whose function is to stabilize the retinal image by producing eye rotations that counterbalance head rotations. It transforms head rotation signals from the vestibular receptors into motor commands for controlling eye rotation. We study the VOR as an example of a neural network because its input and output (head and eye rotation) can be measured precisely, and its components (vestibular receptors, eyes and eye muscles, and the neurons in between) are experimentally accessible. We use neurophysiological techniques that include single-unit neural recording, and eye movement and eye muscle tension recording, and we manipulate the system by making surgical lesions that we later verify anatomically. We also model the VOR with computational techniques that range from standard control theory to distributed systems and nonlinear, adaptive neural networks. These models can reproduce many of the complex and nonlinear properties of the VOR and of the neurons that mediate it. We use our models to generate predictions that we can test neurophysiologically, thereby achieving a close correspondence between theory and experiment.