Join Shimaoka lab

Current projects | Student research projects

Our brains possess remarkable capabilities for sensing, thinking, planning, and emotion. Systems neuroscience seeks to understand these functions as emergent properties of communication across large-scale neural networks. Recent advances in the field have been driven by technologies that enable simultaneous measurement of large populations of neurons and decoding of their activity patterns.

Building on this foundation, our research aims to move beyond observation toward the manipulation and reconstruction of brain dynamics. By reconstructing neural computations and network activity, we seek to uncover causal and mechanistic principles underlying brain function. In the long term, this work may contribute to technologies that can restore, assist, or augment brain capabilities through precise control of neural dynamics.

We welcome motivated and curious students, including Undergraduate (PHY3990), Honours (PHYHONS), Masters, and PhD students. We particularly encourage applicants with experience in, or enthusiasm to learn, techniques such as:

• Programming and data analysis (MATLAB, Python)
• Animal experimentation (monitoring, behavioural training, surgery)
• Computational modelling (dynamical systems, machine learning)

For further information, please contact Dr Daisuke Shimaoka.