Marc A Sommer, Associate Professor  


Marc A Sommer
Contact Info:
Office Location:  1153 CIEMAS
Office Phone:  (919) 684-7015
Email Address:   send me a message
Web Page:

Education:

PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1995
MS, Stanford University, 1990
BS, Stanford University, 1989
Research Interests:

Dr. Marc Sommer studies neuronal circuits of the brain. Research in his laboratory involves recording from single neurons and studying the effects of inactivating or stimulating well-defined brain areas. His goals are to understand how individual areas process signals and how multiple areas interact to cause cognition and behavior. Results from the work are guiding the design of vision-based models and robots.

Specialties:

Neuroengineering
Awards, Honors, and Distinctions

Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, 2005, 2006
Fellow Award for Research Excellence, National Institutes of Health, 1999
Member, International Neuropsychological Symposium, 2007
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, Neurosciences, National Science Foundation, 1990-1993
Teaching (Fall 2012):

  • BME 790.04, ADV TOP FOR GRADS IN BME Synopsis
    TBA, MW 03:05 PM-04:20 PM; TBA, M 11:45 AM-02:45 PM
Representative Publications   (More Publications)

  1. Crapse, Trinity B. and Sommer, Marc A., Frontal eye field neurons assess visual stability across saccades, Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 32 no. 8 (2012), pp. 2835–2845 [doi]  [abs].
  2. Middlebrooks, Paul G. and Sommer, Marc A., Metacognition in monkeys during an oculomotor task, Journal Of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, And Cognition, vol. 37 no. 2 (2011), pp. 325-337 [doi]  [abs].
  3. Shin, SooYoon and Sommer, Marc A., Activity of neurons in monkey globus pallidus during oculomotor behavior compared with that in substantia nigra pars reticulata, Journal of Neurophysiology, vol. 103 no. 4 (2010), pp. 1874-1887 [doi]  [abs].
  4. Crapse, Trinity B. and Sommer, Marc A., Frontal eye field neurons with spatial representations predicted by their subcortical input, Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 29 no. 16 (2009), pp. 5308-5318 [doi]  [abs].
  5. Mayo, J. Patrick and Sommer, Marc A., Neuronal adaptation caused by sequential visual stimulation in the frontal eye field, Journal of Neurophysiology, vol. 100 no. 4 (2008), pp. 1923-1935 [doi]  [abs].
  6. Sommer, Marc A. and Wurtz, Robert H., Influence of the thalamus on spatial visual processing in frontal cortex, Nature, vol. 444 no. 7117 (2006), pp. 374-377 [doi]  [abs].
  7. Sommer, Marc A. and Wurtz, Robert H., A pathway in primate brain for internal monitoring of movements, Science, vol. 296 no. 5572 (2002), pp. 1480-1482 [doi]  [abs].
Selected Seminars

  1. New Faculty Lecture Series, 2012 [sommer]