Kastner Lab
Principal Investigator: Sabine Kastner
Institution: Princeton University (Princeton, NJ)
Primary Subfield: Neuroscience
Recruitment Status: Inquire for rotation/fellowship opportunities
Research Focus
PROJECT SUMMARY The visual thalamus has been extensively studied in terms of its anatomical organization, connectivity patterns, and basic neural response properties. However, its role in perception and cognition has remained poorly understood. The present application is a competing renewal submission for our grant “Functions of the thalamus in perception and cognition” (RO1-EY017699). Pulvinar is the largest nucleus in the primate thalamus and is considered a higher-order nucleus, because it forms input-output loops almost exclusively with cortex. In addition to cortical inputs, pulvinar also receives projections from the superior colliculus (SC) – a midbrain area controlling saccadic eye movements and spatial attention. From an anatomical perspective, pulvinar is ideally positioned to regulate the transmission of information to cortex and between cortical areas to influence perceptual and cognitive processes. Evidence from lesion studies in humans and monkeys demonstrates a critical involvement of pulvinar in a number of fundamental cognitive functions, including orienting responses and the filtering of unwanted information. Our studies during the last funding cycle have begun to…
Active NIH Awards
- 5R01EY017699-15: Functions of the thalamus in attention and perception (2026)
- 4RF1MH137624-03: Neural basis of visual attention in the primate brain (2026)
- 5P50MH132642-04: Cognitive Thalamus (2026)
- 5P50MH132642-04: Administrative Core (2026)
- 5P50MH132642-04: Functions and thalamocortical interactions of macaque higher order thalamus in cognitive control (2026)
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