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 approval for a new Department of Neuroscience. It is the first academic department at U.C. Berkeley in 30 years.

Recent publications

  • 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.

  • Chien, J., Wallis, J.D., and Rich, E.L. (2023) Abstraction of reward context facilitates relative reward coding in dorsal and ventral anterior cingulate cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 43, 5944-5962.

 

Meet the team

 
  • Joni Wallis

    Principal Investigator

  • Thomas Elston

    Postdoctoral Fellow

  • Alyssa Sanchez

    Postdoctoral Fellow

  • Nathan Munet

    Graduate Student

  • Eric Hu

    Graduate Student