UC Davis Health
Department of Neurology

Usrey Neuroscience

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  • Principal Investigator

    W. Martin Usrey, Ph.D.

    W. Martin Usrey, Ph.D., has been a member of the UC Davis faculty for over 15 years with a split appointment between the Department of Neurology and the Department of Neurobiology, Physiology & Behavior. During this time, he has served the University as Director of the UC Davis BRAIN Consortium—the campus response to President Obama’s Grand Challenge (the “BRAIN Initiative”), Chair of the Neuroscience Graduate Program, Vice-Chair of the Executive Committee for the College of Biological Sciences. He is also the Chair of the Department of Neurobiology, Physiology & Behavior.

    Usrey has received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), Ester A. and Joseph Klingenstein Award, the McKnight Scholar Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship Award, the UC Davis College of Biological Sciences Research Award, and the Scientific Innovations Award from the Brain Research Foundation. His research is supported by grants from the NIH and NSF.

  • Our Research Goals

    The long-term goal of the Usrey laboratory is to understand the functional properties of neural circuits that serve vision and the relationship between cell physiology, circuit activity, behavior and perception. 

  • Current Projects

    Current research projects are focused on determining (1) how sensory information is processed and transmitted within and between brain areas, (2) the cellular and circuit mechanisms that mediate the effects of spatial attention on visual processing, (3) the role of feedback pathways for vision, and (4) the relationship between neural activity and visual perception. Using an arsenal of techniques, we are discovering how sensory information is established and encoded in brain activity, as well as the mechanisms employed by the brain for communicating information dynamically from one level to the next.

  • Our Team

    • Henry J Alitto, Ph.D.
    • Jeffrey Johnson, Ph.D.
    • Katie Neverkovec, LATg
    • Tithi Patel
    • Vansh Shrivastava
    • Heidi Spence
    • Dan Sperka, Ph.D.
    • Melissa Stroud, B.S.
    • Kimchee Tran, B.S.
    • Chase Usrey
    • Ben Weiss

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