Jeff lichtman biography

Jeff Lichtman, MD, PhD
Jeremy R. Knowles Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology
Santiago Ramón y Cajal Professor of Arts and Sciences
Email: jeff@mcb.harvard.edu
Lab website: http://lichtmanlab.fas.harvard.edu/

We are interested in understanding how information is physically encoded in the nervous system.

One of our major goals is to generate, in collaboration with others, a complete map of the neural connections in the brain—known as the “connectome.” Like the Human Genome Project, we believe that connectome work is necessary from both a basic science and clinical standpoint.

From the basic science perspective, studying how the connectome changes as our brains mature will address fundamental questions of brain development, learning and memory, and comparing the connectomes of different individuals will reveal to what degree the pattern of neural connections in each human brain is unique.

From a clinical perspective, connectomics will allow us to thoroughly examine the hypot