Using multi-contact probes to functionally dissect the primate floccular circuit
David Herzfeld, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow in the Lisberger Lab, Duke University
David Herzfeld received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University working in the laboratory of Reza Shadmehr. He is currently a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Stephen G. Lisberger at Duke University. David is broadly interested in how the brain learns and retains motor skills. His previous work in the field of motor learning began by describing how the brain exploits a memory of previously experienced movement errors to improve motor learning on subsequent exposures. In addition, David has described how populations of Purkinje cells in the oculomotor vermis of the cerebellum are organized to service saccadic motor learning. His current work uses multi-contact linear probes to record from the complete circuit in the flocculus of the cerebellum, with the goal of describing how this circuit contributes to smooth pursuit motor learning.