Christopher D Harvey

Christopher D. Harvey, Ph.D.

Professor of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School
Director of Admissions, Program in Neuroscience
Harvey Lab Website

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Christopher Harvey, PhD

Professor of Neurobiology
Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School

Email: christopher_harvey@hms.harvard.edu
Website: Harvey Lab website – more information about Christopher Harvey’s research (opens in a new tab)

The Aim

The Harvey Lab studies how brain circuits guide navigation, memory, and decision‑making.

The Impact

Finding your way from point A to point B requires the brain to integrate memory, sensory information, and ongoing decisions in real time. The Harvey Lab uses virtual‑reality environments and advanced imaging tools to watch these computations unfold in living neural circuits, identifying the specific cell types and connection patterns that make them possible. Because working memory and navigation are impaired in Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, and traumatic brain injury, this research lays important groundwork for understanding what goes wrong in such conditions, and what interventions might be possible.

A Closer Look

Publications View
Automated preclinical detection of mechanical pain hypersensitivity and analgesia.
Authors: Authors: Zhang Z, Roberson DP, Kotoda M, Boivin B, Bohnslav JP, González-Cano R, Yarmolinsky DA, Turnes BL, Wimalasena NK, Neufeld SQ, Barrett LB, Quintão NLM, Fattori V, Taub DG, Wiltschko AB, Andrews NA, Harvey CD, Datta SR, Woolf CJ.
Pain
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Representational drift: Emerging theories for continual learning and experimental future directions.
Authors: Authors: Driscoll LN, Duncker L, Harvey CD.
Curr Opin Neurobiol
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The structures and functions of correlations in neural population codes.
Authors: Authors: Panzeri S, Moroni M, Safaai H, Harvey CD.
Nat Rev Neurosci
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Hippocampal place codes are gated by behavioral engagement.
Authors: Authors: Pettit NL, Yuan XC, Harvey CD.
Nat Neurosci
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Cortical responses to touch reflect subcortical integration of LTMR signals.
Authors: Authors: Emanuel AJ, Lehnert BP, Panzeri S, Harvey CD, Ginty DD.
Nature
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Mechanoreceptor synapses in the brainstem shape the central representation of touch.
Authors: Authors: Lehnert BP, Santiago C, Huey EL, Emanuel AJ, Renauld S, Africawala N, Alkislar I, Zheng Y, Bai L, Koutsioumpa C, Hong JT, Magee AR, Harvey CD, Ginty DD.
Cell
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DeepEthogram, a machine learning pipeline for supervised behavior classification from raw pixels.
Authors: Authors: Bohnslav JP, Wimalasena NK, Clausing KJ, Dai YY, Yarmolinsky DA, Cruz T, Kashlan AD, Chiappe ME, Orefice LL, Woolf CJ, Harvey CD.
Elife
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Correlations enhance the behavioral readout of neural population activity in association cortex.
Authors: Authors: Valente M, Pica G, Bondanelli G, Moroni M, Runyan CA, Morcos AS, Harvey CD, Panzeri S.
Nat Neurosci
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Scaling of sensory information in large neural populations shows signatures of information-limiting correlations.
Authors: Authors: Kafashan M, <a href="https://connects.catalyst.harvard.edu/Profiles/profile/125868897">Jaffe AW</a>, Chettih SN, Nogueira R, Arandia-Romero I, <a href="https://connects.catalyst.harvard.edu/Profiles/profile/1258134">Harvey CD</a>, Moreno-Bote R, <a href="https://connects.catalyst.harvard.edu/Profiles/profile/59923576">Drugowitsch J</a>.
Nat Commun
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Bidirectional perisomatic inhibitory plasticity of a Fos neuronal network.
Authors: Authors: Yap EL, Pettit NL, Davis CP, Nagy MA, Harmin DA, Golden E, Dagliyan O, Lin C, Rudolph S, Sharma N, Griffith EC, Harvey CD, Greenberg ME.
Nature
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