Dr. ESTUARDO ROBLES Assistant Professor 765-494-8413 Lilly B-129 roblese@purdue.edu Associated website(s): Lab Website , Publications

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PROFESSIONAL FACULTY RESEARCH

Neuroscience, Cell Biology, Molecular Biology

BIO

Research in my laboratory is focused on understanding how the vertebrate nervous system processes visual information to generate appropriate behaviors in response to changes in their environment. We study visually-responsive neurons in the larval zebrafish, a vertebrate animal model that is ideal for 1) targeted manipulation of genetically-defined neurons, 2) in vivo imaging of neuronal structure and function, and 3) quantitative analysis of visually-evoked behaviors. A major current focus of the lab is to functionally and genetically characterize retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), the neurons that transmit visual information from the retina to the brain. Future studies will be aimed at defining the structural and functional properties of visual neurons in the brain, with the ultimate goal of discovering fundamental principles underlying the organization of visual circuits. The experimental tools that we use include genetic methods to label and manipulate specific neuron types, confocal microscopy to construct catalogs of cell types in the brain, and multiphoton microscopy to monitor visually-evoked neuronal activity.