• Title Assistant Professor of Biology
  • Education PhD, University of Texas at Austin
  • Web Address http://gavorniklab.bu.edu
  • Phone 617-358-0444
  • Area of Interest cortical circuits, synaptic plasticity as the basis of learning and memory, the neural representation and processing of time, the biophysical basis of visual perception
  • CV

Current Research

The basis of all cognitive function is communication between neurons in the brain. This communication is mediated by synaptic connections that are modified by experience to encode function. In order to get at the big question of “how the brain works”, I study how experience driven synaptic plasticity changes local neocortical physiology. I am particularly interested in how neural circuits are able to incorporate past experience to predictively represent spatiotemporal information.

Employing a variety of experimental and computational approaches, my lab examines how the cortical response to specific sensory stimuli change as a consequence of learning. We use the primary sensory cortices, particularly the visual cortex, as relatively accessible and interpretable regions in which to isolate the core biology responsible for coding higher-order information in less accessible neocortical areas. The goal is to elucidate the mechanistic bases of cortical processing algorithms and memory storage.

Selected Publications

  • Rozells J, Gavornik JP, Optogenetic manipulation of inhibitory interneurons can be used to validate a model of spatiotemporal sequence learning,
    Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, Volume 17 (2023) 1198128. doi:10.3389/fncom.2023.1198128 ISSN=1662-5188  
  • Byron H Price, Jensen CM, Khoudary AA, Gavornik JP, Expectation violations produce error signals in mouse V1, Cerebral Cortex, Volume 33, Issue 13 (2023) Pages 8803–8820.
  • Price BH, Gavornik JP, Efficient Temporal Coding in the Early Visual System: Existing Evidence and Future Directions, Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, Volume 16 (2022) ISSN 1662-5188.
  • Schecter RW, Jensen CM, Gavornik JP (2023) Sex and estrous cycle affect experience-dependent plasticity in mouse primary visual cortex (2023) PLoS ONE 18(4): e0282349. 
  • Sakar S, Martinez Reyes C, Jensen CM, Gavornik JP, M2 receptors are required for spatiotemporal sequence learning in mouse primary visual cortex (2022), doi.
  • Sidorov MS, Kim H, Rougie M, Williams B, Siegel JJ, Gavornik JP, Philpot BD, Visual Sequences Drive Experience-Dependent Plasticity in Mouse Anterior Cingulate Cortex, Cell Reports, Volume 32, Issue 11, (2020) 108152, ISSN 2211-1247.
  • Grieco SF, Qiao X, Zheng X, Liu Y, Chen L, Zhang H, Yu Z, Gavornik JP, Lai C, Gandhi SP, Holmes TC, Xu X,
    Subanesthetic Ketamine Reactivates Adult Cortical Plasticity to Restore Vision from Amblyopia, Current Biology, Volume 30, Issue 18 (2020) Pages 3591-3603.e8, ISSN 0960-9822.
  • Gavornik JP, Bear MF, Learned spatiotemporal sequence recognition and prediction in the primary visual cortex (2014) Nat Neurosci 17(5) 732-737.

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