Andy Alexander

Assistant Professor

Research Area

Neuroscience and Behavior

Biography

Andy Alexander received his B.S. and Ph.D. in Cognitive Science at the University of California San Diego. As a postdoctoral fellow at Boston University, he examined cortical computations relating to navigation and episodic memory. He joined the faculty at UC Santa Barbara in 2023 where his laboratory investigates spatial and mnemonic processing across corticothalamic circuits in health and disease.

Research

Our lab is interested in interactions between the neocortex, thalamus, and extended hippocampal formation that subserve spatial cognition and mnemonic processes. To investigate these topics, we combine multisite in vivo electrophysiology, in vivo neuroimaging, and circuit perturbations with sophisticated and ethologically inspired behaviors in mice and rats.

Selected Publications

Lian, Y., Williams, S., Alexander, A.S., Hasselmo, M.E., & Burkitt, A.N. (2023). Learning the vector coding of egocentric boundary cells from visual data. Journal of  Neuroscience.

Alexander, A.S., Robinson, J.C., Stern, C.E., & Hasselmo, M.E. (2023). Gated transformations from egocentric to allocentric reference frames involving retrosplenial cortex, entorhinal cortex, and hippocampus. Hippocampus, 33(5), 465-487.

Alexander, A.S., Place, R., Starrett, M.J., Chrastil, E.R., Nitz, D.A. (2022). Rethinking retrosplenial cortex: Perspective and predictions. Neuron.  10.1016/j.neuron.2022.11.006.

Alexander, A.S., Tung, J.C., Chapman, G.W., Shelley, L.E., Hasselmo, M.E., Nitz, D.A. (2022). Adaptive integration of self-motion and goals in posterior parietal cortex. Cell Reports, 38(10), 110504

Alexander, A. S., Carstensen, L. C., Hinman, J. R., Raudies, F, Chapman G W., Hasselmo, M. E. (2020). Egocentric boundary vector tuning of the retrosplenial cortex., Science Advances, 6(8).

Alexander, A. S., Rangel, L. M., Tingley, D., & Nitz, D. A. (2018). Neurophysiological signatures of temporal coordination between retrosplenial cortex and the hippocampal formation. Behavioral neuroscience, 132(5), 453-468.

Alexander, A. S., & Nitz, D. A. (2017). Spatially periodic activation patterns of retrosplenial cortex encode route sub-spaces and distance traveled. Current Biology, 27(11), 1551-1560.

Alexander, A. S., & Nitz, D. A. (2015). Retrosplenial cortex maps the conjunction of internal and external spaces. Nature Neuroscience, 18(8), 1143-1151.