lorenm@uci.edu
BIO SKETCH
I am an undergraduate biomedical engineering student at UCI in my senior year. Immediately upon transferring I was accepted into a lab at Beckman Laser Institute where I have been working on optical histology. While at this lab I have completed SURP and UROP projects. The laboratory environment has absolutely captivated my interest and so I have branched out into more areas of interest with a focus on the brain. In addition to working here at the McNaughton lab I am conducting research under the guidance of Dr. Yama Akbari on human EEG data during death. My goal is to obtain better understanding of brain activity and function to advance the field of neuro-prosthetic devices.
RESEARCH PROJECT
My role in the laboratory is to assist in conducting behavioral experiments with mice to study formation of place cells and their hippocampal dependency. The mice undergo surgery to install imaging equipment that can stream place cell activity while traversing a maze. These cells correlate to specific coordinates in the maze and can be consolidated to the cortex. The cortical place cells will be tested for their dependency on the hippocampus. My responsibilities for this project include: equipment preparation/assembly, training mice for experimentation, conducting behavioral experiments, processing/analyzing experimental data, and cardiac perfusion.
Mathew joined the McNaughton research group in January 2018 working with mentor Elham Ghanbarian.