I am a PhD candidate working on understanding the neural bases of integration of different sensory and mnemonic information in the brain. During my Master’s work, I characterized activity of single neurons in the lateral entorhinal cortex (LEC) and demonstrated its role in situation coding. In the current project, my aim is to discover the role of the LEC projections to the medial prefrontal cortex, and their role in memory retrieval. Outside of the lab, I am discovering astrophotography and drone piloting.

Yixiong is a Ph.D. candidate studying the role of hippocampal ripple and neocortical spindle coupling on memory consolidation in Alzheimer's disease. He graduated from McGill University with a Bachelor of Science - Honours Computer Science and Biology. Throughout his undergraduate study, Yixiong has accumulated extensive experience in the software development industry and hopes to be able to apply his computer science skills in the field of neuroscience. Now as a part of the Takehara lab, Yixiong will learn and use a variety of neuroscience techniques, including electrophysiology with LFP, single neuron recordings, and electrical stimulation, behavioural experimentation, stereotaxic surgery, and time series analysis. In his free time, he tends to go on hikes, read, and play board games with his friends.

I am a first-year PhD student in the Psychology department and study circuit mechanisms of transitive inference in mice.             

Cathlin is a fourth-year undergraduate student specializing in Neuroscience and majoring in Molecular Genetics and Microbiology. She is interested in using genetic and neuroimaging modalities to study learning and memory across age. In her free time, she enjoys good music, meeting new people, and discovering food gems around campus.

While working on ischemic stroke and Huntington's disease research during my undergrad years, I was fascinated by brain sciences, from synaptic molecules to neuronal firing and to animal behaviors. I, therefore, ventured into the field of neuroscience, specifically to understand the underlying mechanism of associative memory. Here in Takehara lab, my research is focused on identifying and characterizing the role of basal forebrain cholinergic inputs to the medial prefrontal cortex in the trace eyeblink conditioning. Outside of the laboratory, I like photography and cooking.

As a first-year PhD student, my research interests range from exploring how neural representations enable efficient memory to employing multiple state-of-the-art tools to advance research (computational model, pharmacological and genetic methods). Currently, my project focuses on understanding the roles of different information coded in the lateral entorhinal cortex play in optimizing the network state for memory encoding and retrieval. Prior to UofT, I received my bachelor's degree in psychology from Peking University. In my undergraduate study, I worked on hippocampal decoding from maze learning paradigm. Besides neuroscience, I consume literature and especially enjoy reading sociology and politics. I also have a great passion when cooking and playing video games.

I am Peiyu and I am currently a third year undergraduate student from Department of Physics. I am doing a Physics Specialist, Physiology Minor, and Mathematics Minor. My research direction is biophysics and neuromodulation. I am working with Yixiong, mainly focus on electrophysiology tools, perfusion, brain slicing, and etc.

Franco Valencia is an undergraduate student fascinated by the interdisciplinary nature of cognition, currently studying neuroscience, psychology, and computer science. He is particularly interested in the biological mechanisms underlying learning and memory and hopes to apply this knowledge in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. Outside of school and the lab, he enjoys reading philosophy and creating digital artwork.