Staff Directory

I completed my PhD in Neuroscience at McGill University, where I studied the function of a brain area called the hippocampus in monkeys. To do this, I developed custom-made virtual reality tools and trained monkeys to complete multiple cognitive tasks in a stable virtual environment. In resulting publications, I've shown that hippocampal neurons encode diverse elements of experience related to ongoing behavior and memory of recent experience.

In a collaboration with Drs. Daniel Salzman & Stefano Fusi, I'm now studying how deliberative decisions are derived from neural representations of objects, memories, and context. My project combines the use of virtual reality, large-scale electrophysiology across a number of brain areas, and other behavioural recording techniques in rhesus monkeys.

http://www.robertogulli.com/

Selected publication(s):

1: Gulli RA, Duong LR, Corrigan BW, Doucet G, Williams S, Fusi S,
Martinez-Trujillo JC. Context-dependent representations of objects and space in
the primate hippocampus during virtual navigation. Nat Neurosci. 2020
Jan;23(1):103-112. doi: 10.1038/s41593-019-0548-3. Epub 2019 Dec 23. PubMed PMID:
31873285.

2: Gulli RA. Beyond metaphors and semantics: A framework for causal inference in
neuroscience. Behav Brain Sci. 2019 Nov 28;42:e230. doi:
10.1017/S0140525X19001389. PubMed PMID: 31775938.

3: Blonde JD, Roussy M, Luna R, Mahmoudian B, Gulli RA, Barker KC, Lau JC,
Martinez-Trujillo JC. Customizable cap implants for neurophysiological
experimentation. J Neurosci Methods. 2018 Jul 1;304:103-117. doi:
10.1016/j.jneumeth.2018.04.016. Epub 2018 Apr 22. PubMed PMID: 29694848.

4: Corrigan BW, Gulli RA, Doucet G, Martinez-Trujillo JC. Characterizing eye
movement behaviors and kinematics of non-human primates during virtual navigation
tasks. J Vis. 2017 Oct 1;17(12):15. doi: 10.1167/17.12.15. PubMed PMID: 29071352.

5: Doucet G, Gulli RA, Martinez-Trujillo JC. Cross-species 3D virtual reality
toolbox for visual and cognitive experiments. J Neurosci Methods. 2016 Jun
15;266:84-93. doi: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2016.03.009. Epub 2016 Mar 22. PubMed PMID:
27015795.

Rahim was born and raised in Santa Monica, CA. He received his bachelor's degree in Biology and Computer Science from Yale College. He spent two years in NYC after, working at Frankel Group – now a part of Huron Life Sciences – consulting both large and small biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. He then moved to San Francisco to work with Joshua Berke at UCSF’s Department of Integrative Neuroscience, before moving back to New York to start his PhD at Columbia, where he's now working under the mentorship of Daniel Salzman. 

Selected publication(s): Rasheed S, Hashim R, Yan JS. Possible Biomarkers for the Early Detection of HIV-associated Heart Diseases: A Proteomics and Bioinformatics Prediction. Comput Struct Biotechnol J. 2015;13:145–152. Published 2015 Feb 18. doi:10.1016/j.csbj.2015.02.001

Erica received her B.A in Biology & Neuroscience and Psychology at CUNY Macaulay Honors College and CUNY Queens College. She then received her Ph.D. in Neurobiology with Dr. Fan Wang at Duke University examining the neural circuitry underlying heightened facial pain perception. Currently, Erica is exploring how the dynamic social environment regulates state value representation in the mouse.

Selected publication(s):

• Rodriguez, E; Ryu, D.; Zhao, S.; Han, B-X.; Wang, F.  Identifying parabrachial neurons selectively regulating satiety for highly palatable food in mice. eNeuro. 6, 0252-19 (2019)

• Rodriguez, E; Sakurai K.; Xu, J; Chen, Y.; Toda, K.; Zhao, S.; Han, B-X.; Ryu, D.; Yin, H.; Liedtke W.; Wang, F. A craniofacial-specific monosynaptic circuit enables heightened affective pain. Nature Neuroscience. 20, 1734-1743 (2017)

• Paez-Gonzalez, P.*, Asrican, B.*, Rodriguez, E.*, Kuo, C.T. Identification of distinct ChAT+ neurons and activity-dependent control of postnatal SVZ neurogenesis. Nature Neuroscience. 17, 934-942 (2014) (*co-first authors)