Matthew Rosenberg

Department: Physics
Faculty Adviser: David Tank
Year of Study:
Undergraduate School: UCLA
Undergraduate Major: Cognitive Science

Personal Bio

I’m a postdoctoral fellow affiliated with the Princeton Neuroscience Institute and the Center for the Physics of Biological Function, working in the lab of Professor David Tank. I study the neural mechanisms of learning and memory in mice. I grew up and studied in California. At UCLA, I volunteered in a few different animal and human labs studying various topics including analogical reasoning, epilepsy, serotonin, associative learning, language, and consciousness. These experiences had profound influences on my personal and professional life. I hope to expose Princeton students to the exhilaration and intellectual satisfaction that comes from exploring the intricacies of the brain and research more generally.

Fun Fact

I enjoy making (afrobeat and hip hop) beats and (GAN and stable diffusion) generative art.

Research Pitch

In graduate school at Caltech, I developed a novel maze foraging task that elicits multi-action learning in mice in minutes instead of days, as is more typical of animal learning experiments. I’m currently using modern electrical and imaging techniques to measure the activities of 10s to 100s of neurons in mice moving through these complex mazes. The short time it takes for mice to learn the maze allows us to ask what is different in the brain before and after learning. A separate project probes the limits of mouse cognition by providing mice with 24/7 access to a virtual reality video game. By training mice to navigate in an abstract virtual space, these experiments seek to establish a new animal model for generalized cognition.

Upcoming Programs That I Am Attending:

Plans for Summer 2025

Not available to participate in Summer ReMatch+ program.