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About the Wallis Lab
We are part of the Department of Neuroscience at the University of California at Berkeley. Our research focuses on understanding the functional organization of the frontal cortex at the single neuron level. Our methods use sophisticated behavioral paradigms, multichannel recording and computational analysis of neuronal data. We aim to understand the neuronal mechanisms underlying a number of high-level cognitive and behavioral processes, including decision-making, learning, and working memory. The goal of our research is to guide the development of the next generation of treatments for mental illness.
Research
Our lab specializes in high-channel count recordings of electrical activity from multiple individual neurons throughout the frontal cortex and determines the information encoded by those neurons. Our research uses techniques derived from the brain-machine interface literature, such as real-time decoding and closed-loop microstimulation, with the goal of developing novel treatments for neuropsychiatric disorders that involve impaired decision-making including addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and schizophrenia.
News
Neuropixels recordings!
We are now recording from multiple Neuropixels probes, and record several hundred neurons a day, or about half a terabyte of data. We are continuing to scale up.
A new Department of Neuroscience!
After five years of hard work, we finally have a new Department of Neuroscience. It is the first academic department at U.C. Berkeley in 30 years.
Recent publications
Elston, T.W. and Wallis, J.D. (2025) Context-dependent decision-making in the primate hippocampal-prefrontal circuit. Nature Neuroscience.
Muller, T.H., Butler, J.L., Veselic, S., Miranda, B., Wallis, J.D., Dayan, P., Behrens, T.E.J., Kurth-Nelson, Z., and Kennerley, S.W. (2024) Distributional reinforcement learning in cortex. Nature Neuroscience, 27, 403-408.
Balewski, Z.Z., Elston, T.W., Knudsen, E.B., and Wallis, J.D. (2023) Value dynamics in orbitofrontal cortex drive the choice response in anterior cingulate cortex during decision-making. Nature Neuroscience, 26, 1575-1583.
Meet the team
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Joni Wallis
Principal Investigator
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Thomas Elston
Postdoctoral Fellow
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Alyssa Sanchez
Postdoctoral Fellow
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Nathan Munet
Graduate Student
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Eric Hu
Graduate Student