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.