Larry Abbott

Co-Director, Kavli Institute for Brain Science

Larry Abbott is the William Bloor Professor of Theoretical Neuroscience and Professor of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics (in Biological Sciences). His research involves the computational modeling and mathematical analysis of neurons and neural networks. Analytic techniques and computer simulation are used to study how single neurons respond to their many synaptic inputs, how neurons interact to produce functioning neural circuits, and how large populations of neurons represent, store, and process information. Areas of particular interest include spike-timing dependent forms of synaptic plasticity, transformations of sensory encoding in olfaction, and the dynamics of internally generated activity and signal propagation in large neural networks.