I’m interested in the role of subcortical circuits in motor behaviors. A lot of the focus in neuroscience is in the mammalian cortex, because that’s the area of the brain in humans that evolutionarily most separates us from other mammals. And there’s certainly a lot of work done in motor cortex. But we know that the phylogenetically older circuits, like the basal ganglia, also have a very important role in motor behavior. I’m interested in understanding how the mammalian motor cortex and older subcortical circuits cooperate with each other to learn and execute complex motor skills, like typing in a computer or swinging a tennis racket in a precise way. We’re currently working to identify a tutor circuit within motor cortex that “teaches” older circuits to control motor behavior in extremely precise and complex ways.

What are you researching in the Ölveczky lab?
We are interested in motor systems. Essentially the software that the brain has figured out to solve different problems that we usually take for granted, like typing in the computer. Your ability to type in the computer doesn’t really interfere with your ability to type your pass code on your phone, or play the piano for example. The brain can also learn these kinematically complex tasks very quickly, and conserve the memories associated with these skills throughout our entire lives; we usually don’t forget important skills like tying our shoes, for example. One of our goals is to figure out the software that allows the brain to achieve these incredible feats.

We’re also interested in how neural circuits implement these software solutions. So essentially what we do is we teach rats to learn different motor skills that replicate some of the skills that we rely on in our daily lives. For example, skills analogous to how athletes are able to sway a tennis racket or throw a basketball into the basket. And then we record neural activity while these animals are behaving and we’re keeping track of the behavior. We also break certain neural circuits and quantify the deficits that arise from these manipulations. This allows us to identify the behavioral function of specific neural circuits in a causal way.

So what did you want to do when you were a kid?
As a kid, I was fascinated with construction and I wanted to be a construction worker. My dad, a chemical engineer, would always watch a lot of Discovery Channel shows on how things are made, and this also always interested me. I took physics in college and I was fascinated by how we can learn to describe very complex phenomena in nature, with just mathematical equations. You can have beautiful descriptions of very complicated scenarios in nature. And after taking those classes, I’m very interested in trying to describe the messiness in biology with the same elegance. I don’t even know if it’s possible, but I think that neuroscience is a great discipline for combining the elegance of mathematical modeling with the messiness of biology.

What are the things you feel most passionately about, either as a scientist or in life in general?
As a scientist, I always felt most passionately about understanding how neurons implement software and how that results in the experiences that we have. You listen to a song that you love, and this is all being mediated by complex patterns of neural activity in the auditory system, for example, and its interaction with reward systems and other areas of the brain. But we have absolutely no idea how the electrical patterns that you get in your ear and the cochlea translate to such an experience. And that has always fascinated me. And I think that we’re nowhere near understanding this. And so when you’re doing science, you have to settle for the fact you are studying much simpler problems, but it’s towards that goal of understanding how the physiology of the brain lets us experience the world the way that we do.

And outside of science, I’d say that the topics that I enjoy talking about most are politics and economics. I grew up in Puerto Rico until my early twenties. And Puerto Rico is a unique political situation in the sense that we’re not a sovereign country and we’re not a state of the United States. So we’re basically a colony, and this has always been a source of discussion in the Island. What could we do to have a strong economy if we’re to be independent? What would be the implications of us being part of the US? Et cetera, et cetera. And now coming into the US, I was exposed to a whole range of new problems that I’m always just interested in thinking, ‘What are the best solutions for these’?

What are the qualities that you most admire in others?
I’d say two things that you have to be able to do. One is to be stubborn enough. To pursue the final question that you want to study. And irrespective of how hard things get or discouraging, you keep with it. But also, you have to be flexible or self-critical enough to pivot when things are going in the wrong way. And you have to adapt your strategy to the new data and information that you’re getting. And I think that this is maybe the main skill that you learn in graduate school.

Some of the people that I most admire are people that have gone through lots of hardships, but irrespective of those hardships, they keep working through them and they are successful. Back home, I don’t know that many scientists, but I do know some entrepreneurs that have had many, many hardships and they’re still able to generate multiple businesses, successful businesses. These are creative people that are willing to do the hard work to start multiple businesses. I also know other people that have gone through even harder hardships, but they continuously work very hard jobs, like construction, or driving trucks and things like that.

And these people, they don’t look for pity or anything. They keep going forward. I always admire that. But I also admire people who are willing to look at themselves and willing to compromise and realize that they can be wrong about certain things. There’s always a trade-off and you have to find that sweet spot between stubbornness, but also flexibility. And I think that people that are able to strike that balance are the people that I usually admire the most.

What are the things you do for fun?
I like watching movies a lot. My favorite is the Matrix trilogy. And I also just love chatting with people about politics, economics, and science. I also really like road trips where I’m going from San Francisco to Las Vegas, or going from here to Canada. I love driving and seeing new environments.