Prof. Dr. Ruben Portugues
Academic Career and Research Areas
Prof. Portugues (b 1977) is a neurobiologist studying sensorimotor control. His research group uses behavior, modeling, optogenetics, in-vivo electrophysiology and whole brain functional calcium imaging to dissect learning, memory and action selection in the larval zebrafish.
Prof. Portugues studied mathematics and did his PhD in theoretical physics at Trinity College in the University of Cambridge (1995-2004). After a short postdoctoral fellowship (2005-2006) in physics at Centro de Estudios Cientificos in Valdivia, Chile, he joined Professor Florian Engert’s laboratory at Harvard University and switched research interests to neuroscience (2007-2014). In 2014 he was appointed Max Planck Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried. Since 2020 Prof. Portugues is an assistant professor at the TUM.
Key Publications
Petrucco L, Lavian H, Wu YK, Svara F, Štih V, Portugues R: “Neural dynamics and architecture of the heading direction circuit in zebrafish”. Nature Neuroscience. 2023; 26, 765–773.
AbstractDragomir EI, Štih V, Portugues R: “Evidence accumulation during a sensorimotor decision task revealed by whole-brain imaging”. Nature Neuroscience. 2020; (23) 85-93.
AbstractOteiza P, Odstrcil I, Lauder G, Portugues R, Engert F: "A novel mechanism for mechanosensory-based rheotaxis in larval zebrafish". Nature. 2017; 547(7664): 445-448.
AbstractPortugues R, Feierstein CE, Engert F, Orger MB: "Whole-brain activity maps reveal stereotyped, distributed networks for visuomotor behavior". Neuron. 2014; 81(6): 1328-1343.
AbstractAhrens MB, Li JM, Orger MB, Robson DN, Schier AF, Engert F, Portugues R: “Brain-wide neuronal dynamics during motor adaptation in zebrafish”. Nature. 2012; (485), 471-477.
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