Mainak Patel, Visiting Assistant Professor

Contact Info:

Office Location:	Mathematics 114
Office Phone:	(919) 660-6979
Email Address:

Office Hours:

Monday 4-5pm
Thursday 4:15-5:15pm

Education:

PhD	New York University, Courant Institute for Mathematical Sciences	2011
MD	New York University School of Medicine	2011

Specialties:

Applied Math

Research Interests: Mathematical Biology

Current projects: dynamics of stimulus selection in the owl optic tectum

The barn owl is exquisitely adapted to be able to accurately pinpoint the spatial location of salient sensory stimuli, and the midbrain isthmotectal circuit is thought to be the major contributor to this remarkable ability. A key player within this circuit is the optic tectum (OT), which receives a topographic map of visual space through direct retinal projections as well as an ordered map of auditory localization cues from the inferior colliculus (IC). A precise alignment of visual and auditory maps exists within the OT, so that a tectal neuron is driven most effectively by salient stimuli within a restricted region of space, independent of sensory modality (with multimodal stimuli actually being the most effective). The activity of tectal neurons therefore faithfully encodes the spatial location of a stimulus. Moreover, concurrent stimuli at disparate regions of space compete for representation within the OT, and isthmotectal circuit activity leads to the emergence of a dominant stimulus; activity in the OT map is diminished at the location of the defeated stimulus and sustained at the location of the selected stimulus. Thus, the isthmotectal circuit not only functions in precise spatial localization but also aids in the selection of the next stimulus to capture the owl’s attention and gaze. This circuit provides fertile ground for mathematical modeling, and the aim of the project is to elucidate network mechanisms underlying observed physiological behavior and to put forth novel hypotheses about the system.

Areas of Interest:

computational neuroscience
mathematical biology
insect olfactory networks
stimulus selection in the owl optic tectum
spike timing precision in the auditory system

Recent Publications   (search)

1. M. Patel, A.V. Rangan, D. Cai, A large-scale model of the locust antennal lobe, Journal of Computational Neuroscience, vol. 27 no. 3 (2009), pp. 553-567 [19548077]  [abs]