Welcome to the Rutishauser Laboratory of Systems Neuroscience

Ueli Rutishauser, PhD

Professor and Board of Governors Chair in Neurosciences
Director, Center for Neural Science and Medicine
Director, Human Neurophysiology Research
Department of Neurosurgery (primary)
Department of Neurology and the Center for Neural Science and Medicine in the Department of Biomedical Sciences (secondary)
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center


Faculty Associate in Biology and Biological Engineering
Computation & Neural Systems, Division of Biology and Biological Engineering
California Institute of Technology

Publications

Publications and pre-prints with download links, Pubmed , Google Scholar profile

Positions available

Graduate students: Currently admitted PhD students in certain Caltech programs and the Cedars-Sinai Graduate School can contact us to discuss a rotation.
Undergraduate students: We are open to host current Caltech undergraduate students as SURF summer students.
Highschool students: We are open to host highschool students during the summer through the INSPIRE program. Please contact us early (Spring) if of interest.

For all positions, strong coding and data wrangling skills are essential. A PhD and track record of first author publications are required for postdoc positions.
 Please reach out to Ueli Rutishauser (email below) if interested in any of the above.

Contact info

Cedars-Sinai Office: Advanced Health Science Pavilion. Profile E-mail.
Caltech Office: Profile
Official Lab Website.
e-mail: ueli.rutishauser@cshs.org
Twitter

About me

PhD, 2008, Computation and Neural Systems, California Institute of Technology (with Erin Schuman and Christof Koch).
Post-doc, 2008-2010, California Institute of Technology (with Erin Schuman).
Post-doc, 2010-2012, Max Planck Institute for Brain Research (with Gilles Laurent).
About me

Research Interests

We are investigating the neural mechanisms and computational principles that give rise to cognition, with a primary focus on learning, memory, and decision making. We are a systems neuroscience laboratory and use a combination of in-vivo single-unit electrophysiology in humans, intracranial electrocorticography, non-invasive brain imaging, electrical stimulation, eye tracking, behavior, and computational and theoretical approaches. An overarching goal is to capitalize on special neurosurgical situations to advance knowledge of the human nervous system. We have helped pioneer the field of human single-neuron recordings and continue to advance the tools, methods and surgical techniques that allow such experiments. Recent work has focused on the characterization of the structure of population codes using geometric and machine learning methods, cognitive boundaries, novelty and its role in learning, the theta rhythm and its role in neural coordination, error monitoring, and the neural representation of faces.

Group members and alumni

Our work is only possible because of a close collaboration between quantitative and experimental neuroscientists, neurologists and neurosurgeons -- combining science and medicine. We are very proud of our alumni who have gone on to build their own groups practicing this approach around the world.

List of current members and alumni

Collaborators

Adam Mamelak, Cedars-Sinai
Jeffrey Chung, Cedars-Sinai
Chrystal Reed, Cedars-Sinai
Costas Anastassiou, Cedars-Sinai
 Ralph Adolphs, Caltech
Markus Meister, Caltech
John O'Doherty, Caltech
Richard Andersen, Caltech
 Gabriel Kreiman, Children's Hospital Boston/Harvard
Doris Tsao, Berkely
Rodney Douglas, ETHZ
Jean-Jacques Slotine, MIT
Wolfram Schultz, University of Cambridge (UK)
 Katalin Gothard, University of Arizona
Nader Pouratian, UT Southwestern
Jeffrey Schall, York/Vanderbilt
Zhongzheng Fu, UT Southwestern
Shuo Wang, Washington University St. Louis

Funding



Our work is only possible because of funding provided by federal and private foundation sources. We greatfully acknowledge funding by the National Science Foundation (BCS), the National Institute of Health (NIMH, NIDA, NINDS, Brain Initiative), Cedars-Sinai Department of Neurosurgery, Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors, Center for Neural Science and Medicine at Cedars-Sinai, Pfeiffer Foundation, Brain & Behavior Foundation, the McKnight Endowment for Neuroscience, the Kavli Foundation, and the Simons Foundation.

Human single neuron recordings conference

The 3rd human single neuron recordings conference took place at Caltech Nov 10-11 2016. See here for the program and speakers and here for a group picture of all attendes.

The 4th human single neuron meeting took place Nov 1-2 2018, at Caltech. Click here for more information.

The 5th human single neuron meeting took place virtually on Nov 13 2020. Click here for more information.

The 6th human single neuron meeting took take place Nov 10-11 2022 at UCLA. Click here for more information.

Software, code, and data sharing

We make available and actively maintain a number of open source software packages (OSort, NLXtools, StimOMatic, WTAsim). Similarly, we are sharing a number of large datasets publicly.

Data Downloads
Software Downloads