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Akinori F. Ebihara

Ebihara, Akinori-150611-1636Akinori F. Ebihara

Presented by Winrich Freiwald on behalf of himself and Marcelo O. Magnasco

B.S., The University of Tokyo

Normalization Among Heterogeneous Population Confers Stimulus Discriminability on the Macaque Face Patch Neurons

 

 

 

 

As I introduce Akinori Ebihara to you, I find myself in an eerie situation in that I am, at this very moment, re-doing his main experiment.

Let me explain. Akinori studied how the brain processes information it receives from the eyes. He focused on a tiny region in the brain that specializes in faces. Cells in this region measure facial features like the distance between the two eyes. But how do these cells do their measurements, when they are confronted not with one, but many faces all at once? To get an answer to this question, Akinori designed stimuli that looked very much like what I see now: many faces packed close together. Before Akinori’s experiment, we thought cells would get confused or at best muddle through, trying to ignore as many stimuli as possible. What Akinori found was the exact opposite and truly beautiful. Face cells embrace the challenge of a complex scene, and they do so by constructing a code that counts how many stimuli there are, where they are, and what kind they are. Akinori even elegantly identified the circuit mechanism that generates this code, providing deep new insights into how our brains make sense of the world.

Akinori is a man of many talents. He studied biophysics and biochemistry at Tokyo University, where he performed his thesis work on odorant receptor genes. A molecular biologist by training, Akinori is a mathematician by inner calling. He still makes a point of getting up early in the morning to study math. After spending endless hours in the lab, he even found the time to acquire new experimental skills at night and turned himself into an outstanding jazz guitarist—Akinori really rocks! His many talents, and his unique mix of easygoing joyfulness paired with a calm confidence, seriousness, and determination will serve him well as he moves on as a postdoc to tackle new problems in the neurosciences at the interface of experiment and theory.

Akinori was the first student to join my lab at Rockefeller. As his sensei, I am proud and happy today, but I am also sad to see our time together come to an end. His co-advisor Marcelo Magnasco and I join Akinori’s mother Yoko and his wife Yuka on congratulating him on this special day.