Christopher D. Harvey

Christopher D. Harvey, Ph.D.

Professor of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School

Director of Admissions, Program in Neuroscience

Harvey Lab Website

Research
Publications

Open the Christopher Harvey faculty profile graphic in Canva (opens in a new tab)

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

MedicalXpress – February 2024: Mapping decision‑making circuits in the brain (article, opens in a new tab)

This article covers Harvey’s research, published in Nature, which maps the physical connections between decision‑making neurons. This study found that choosing to go left or right activates a chain of cells that ultimately suppresses the neural pathway for the alternative choice, a concrete synaptic mechanism behind how the brain commits to a decision.

ScienceDaily – July 2023: Error‑correction signals in a navigating brain (article, opens in a new tab)

The Harvey Lab placed mice in a virtual‑reality maze and identified a specific type of inhibitory neuron that fires precisely when an animal makes, and then corrects, a wrong turn. This marks the first time an error‑correction signal has been pinpointed in a navigating brain.

Publications View

Locally dynamic synaptic learning rules in pyramidal neuron dendrites.

Authors: Authors: Harvey CD, Svoboda K.
Nature 2007-12-20
View full abstract on Pubmed

Supersensitive Ras activation in dendrites and spines revealed by two-photon fluorescence lifetime imaging.

Authors: Authors: Yasuda R, Harvey CD, Zhong H, Sobczyk A, van Aelst L, Svoboda K.
Nat Neurosci 2006-02-01
View full abstract on Pubmed

Regulation of alternative splicing by SRrp86 and its interacting proteins.

Authors: Authors: Li J, Hawkins IC, Harvey CD, Jennings JL, Link AJ, Patton JG.
Mol Cell Biol 2003-11-01
View full abstract on Pubmed

Cell

Authors: Authors: Mechanoreceptor signal convergence and transformation in the dorsal horn flexibly shape a diversity of outputs to the brain
2022 Nov 01.
View full abstract on Pubmed

Nature

Authors: Authors: Fos ensembles encode and shape stable spatial maps in the hippocampus
2022 09; 609(7926):327-334.
View full abstract on Pubmed

Neuron

Authors: Authors: Shared and specialized coding across posterior cortical areas for dynamic navigation decisions
2022 08 03; 110(15):2484-2502.e16.
View full abstract on Pubmed