H. Sebastian Seung

Position
Evnin Professor in Neuroscience
Role
Professor of Computer Science and Neuroscience
Title
Ph.D., Harvard University, 1990
Office Phone
Assistant
Office
153 PNI
Bio/Description

Research Focus

A neuronal wiring diagram for a fly brain is now complete, and a cubic millimeter reconstruction of mouse visual cortex is being proofread. Neuroscience has finally entered the connectomic era. Now that we have wiring diagrams with unprecedented precision and completeness, the challenge is to interpret them for insights into brain function and development. Sebastian Seung is demonstrating that this can be surprisingly easy, by predicting what a fly can see based on the wiring diagram of its visual system.

In addition, the Seung lab is applying and refining existing connectomic technologies to reconstruct more neuronal wiring diagrams. These ongoing collaborations include more fly connectomes (Mala Murthy), a patch of mouse retina (Thomas Euler), and neural circuits for memory (David Tank), decision making (Adrian Wanner and Jeff Lichtman), and reinforcement learning (Ilana Witten).

The Seung lab continues to advance the state of the art in connectomic technologies, through participation in a “transformative project” of the NIH BRAIN Initiative that aims to scale up connectomics to a whole mouse brain. The Seung lab is also “scaling down” connectomics to reveal even tinier biological structures by boosting image resolution with serial section EM tomography. 

The Princeton Neuroscience Institute is the only site in the world that includes both of the leading EM image acquisition technologies for connectomics, beam-deflection transmission electron microscopy and multi-beam scanning electron microscopy

Related Links

Department/Program
Computer Science
Research Area
NeuroAI
Systems & Circuits
Molecular & Cellular
Computation & Theory