Visual Decision Making Section

The Visual Decision Making Section seeks to help uncover the mechanisms and circuitry of visually driven decision-making. Our work is guided by three broad questions:

• How are such decisions influenced by internal state and behavioral context?
• How do internal states and neuromodulatory circuits influence the encoding of the incoming visual signals in the visual cortex?
• How are these combined signals used to guide behavior in healthy mammalian brains?

Answering these questions is aimed at improving our understanding of how these mechanisms fail in psychiatric and neurological diseases. To address these questions we combine computational, behavioral, pharmacological, functional imaging, videography and large-scale electrophysiological approaches in mammals, and, through collaboration, machine-learning techniques.

Join our lab

We are currently looking for talented and motivated people, regardless of your background, to join us:

For prospective post-doctoral fellows, please email Hendrikje (hendrikje.nienborg@nih.gov) and include a CV, a brief description of your research accomplishments and interests, why you would want to work with us, and the names and contact information for two references.

For prospective graduate students, there are several programs through which graduate students can join our lab, including the Brown, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, Karolinska and Oxford/Cambridge partnerships with the NIH (see links below). If you are interested in rotating or joining the lab, please email Hendrikje (hendrikje.nienborg@nih.gov).

• https://www.nei.nih.gov/grants-and-training/training-nei/clinical-and-postdoctoral-fellowships/postdoctoral-fellowship-visual-systems-neuroscience
• https://www.training.nih.gov/programs/gpp
• https://www.training.nih.gov/programs/gpp/partner/brown
• https://www.training.nih.gov/programs/gpp/partner/jhu
• https://www.training.nih.gov/programs/gpp/partner/gu
• http://oxcam.gpp.nih.gov/

For prospective post-baccalaureate students, please apply at the post-bac/IRTA website (see below) and email Hendrikje (hendrikje.nienborg@nih.gov) with a brief description of your research interests and why you want to join our group.

• https://www.training.nih.gov/programs/postbac_irta

Talluri*, Kang*, Lazere, Quinn, Kaliss, Yates, Butts, Nienborg: Activity in primate visual cortex is minimally driven by spontaneous movements. Nat Neurosci 26:1953–1959 (2023)(https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-023-01459-5) *: equal contribution

Quinn, Seillier, Butts, Nienborg, Decision-related feedback in visual cortex lacks spatial selectivity Nat Commun (2021) 12: 4473 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24629-0

Nienborg, Meyer Neuroscience needs behavior: inferring psychophysical strategy trial by-trial. Neuron (2021) 109:561-563 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2021.01.025

Macke, Nienborg Choice (-history) correlations in sensory cortex: cause or consequence? Current Opin Neurobiol (2019) 58:148-154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2019.09.005

Kawaguchi, Clery, Seillier, Pourriahi, Haefner, Nienborg: Differentiating between Models of Perceptual Decision Making Using Pupil Size Inferred Confidence J Neurosci (2018) 38:8874-8888. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0735-18.2018

Jacob, Nienborg: Monoaminergic neuromodulation of sensory processing Front Neural Circuits (2018) https://doi.org/10.3389/fncir.2018.00051

Lueckmann, Macke*, Nienborg*: Can serial dependencies in choices and neural activity explain choice probability? J Neurosci , (2018) 38:3495-3506. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2225-17.2018

Seillier*, Lorenz*, Kawaguchi, Ott, Nieder, Pourriahi, Nienborg: Serotonin decreases the gain of visual responses in awake macaque V1 J Neurosci , (2017): 37:11390-11405 (* equal contribution) https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1339-17.2017

Clery, Cumming, Nienborg: Decision-Related Activity in Macaque V2 for Fine Disparity Discrimination Is Not Compatible with Optimal Linear Readout. J Neurosci , (2017) : 37:715-725 https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2445-16.2016

Nienborg, Roelfsema: Belief states as a framework to explain extra-retinal influences in visual cortex. Current Opin Neurobiol, (2015) : 32: 45-52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2014.10.013

Nienborg, Cumming: Decision-related activity in sensory neurons reflects more than a neuron’s causal effect. Nature, (2009) : 459:89-92. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature07821