Solving the mysteries of bioscience
Foundational Science Fuels Breakthroughs
Inspiring Next-Generation Scientists
Exploring the brain’s activity, at the level of individual neurons and the whole brain, to reveal how we interpret our environments to make decisions.
Goals and Approach
How do our brains understand the world around us to guide fundamental human behaviors? To answer these questions, scientists at the Allen Institute for Neural Dynamics are analyzing and tracing the path of neural signals in neural circuits cascading and interacting across the whole brain and body. Their approach is focused on how the brain works rather than what it is made of at a cellular or molecular level. Teams of researchers working collaboratively develop next-generation neuro-technologies that capture massive amounts of data that are shared with the wider scientific community. The goal is to catalyze scientific discovery that will lead to treatments and therapies for brain disorders.
We aim to discover how neurons’ activity – and changes in that activity – allow the brain to perform complex but fundamental computations and drive flexible behaviors.
Our experiments and open resources will shed light on behavior, memory, how we handle uncertainty and risk, how we and other animals chase rewards, and how some or all of these complicated cognitive functions go awry in neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression, ADHD, or addiction.
Meet our groups
Meet our advisors
04.10.2024
12.13.2023
11.13.2023
The electrophysiology group aims to monitor and manipulate spikes with high spatiotemporal specificity in order to open up new avenues for understanding the neural underpinnings of behavior.
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Aiming to generate comprehensive descriptions of neuronal types and examine connectivity at various scales in defined cell types.
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Measuring neural circuit functions using light-sensitive molecules.
A platform for high-throughput and reproducible neurophysiology, openly available to run experiments for external scientists.
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Creating a best-in-class open, reproducible, and scalable platform for scientific data storage, analysis, and sharing.
Investigating how the nervous system learns and makes decisions in dynamic environments.
eNeuro
Aug 17, 2023
Chase W. King, Peter Ledochowitsch, Michael A. Buice, Saskia E. J. de Vries
eLife
Feb 08, 2023
Robert Philip Ganley, Marilia Magalhaes de Sousa, Kira Werder, Tugce Öztürk, Raquel Mendes, Matteo Ranucci, Hendrik Wildner, Hanns Ulrich Zeilhofer, David D Ginty
Nature Neuroscience
Feb 02, 2023
Hu Zeng, Jiahao Huang, Haowen Zhou, William J. Meilandt, Borislav Dejanovic, Yiming Zhou, Christopher J. Bohlen, Seung-Hye Lee, Jingyi Ren, Albert Liu, Zefang Tang, Hao Sheng, Jia Liu, Morgan Sheng, Xiao Wang
06.12.2024 - 06.14.2024 | 8:00AM
07.08.2024 - 07.24.2024
08.18.2024 - 09.01.2024
Understanding life. Advancing health.
The Allen Institute is an independent nonprofit bioscience research institute aimed at unlocking the mysteries of biology.
We are leaders in large-scale research that transforms our understanding of health and disease and shapes how science is conducted worldwide.