Jan Drugowitsch

Jan Drugowitsch, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School
Drugowitsch Lab Website

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Jan Drugowitsch, PhD

Associate Professor of Neurobiology
Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School

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

The Aim

The Drugowitsch Lab develops computational models for how the brain makes decisions and navigates under uncertainty.

The Impact

Our brains are remarkably good at making sense of the world that surrounds us in order to act and navigate, even if they only get messy and incomplete information from our senses. Our lab combines tools from neuroscience, machine learning, and physics to figure out how networks of neurons interpret such messy signals to guide behavior. These studies reveal core principles for how healthy brains think, decide, and learn, and could help us better understand brain disorders that affect our decision‑making and navigation abilities. In the long run, this could inform new treatments and more effective technologies for intervention in conditions such as schizophrenia, ADHD, OCD, and anxiety.

A Closer Look

Publications View
Causal inference during closed-loop navigation: parsing of self- and object-motion.
Authors: Authors: Noel JP, Bill J, Ding H, Vastola J, DeAngelis GC, Angelaki DE, Drugowitsch J.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci
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Competitive integration of time and reward explains value-sensitive foraging decisions and frontal cortex ramping dynamics.
Authors: Authors: Bukwich M, Campbell MG, Zoltowski D, Kingsbury L, Tomov MS, Stern J, Kim HR, Drugowitsch J, Linderman SW, Uchida N.
bioRxiv
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Nerve injury disrupts temporal processing in the spinal cord dorsal horn through alterations in PV + interneurons.
Authors: Authors: Rankin G, Chirila AM, Emanuel AJ, Zhang Z, Woolf CJ, Drugowitsch J, Ginty DD.
bioRxiv
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Bayesian inference in ring attractor networks.
Authors: Authors: Kutschireiter A, Basnak MA, Wilson RI, Drugowitsch J.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
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Diverse effects of gaze direction on heading perception in humans.
Authors: Authors: Gao W, Lin Y, Shen J, Han J, Song X, Lu Y, Zhan H, Li Q, Ge H, Lin Z, Shi W, Drugowitsch J, Tang H, Chen X.
Cereb Cortex
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Causal inference during closed-loop navigation: parsing of self- and object-motion.
Authors: Authors: Noel JP, Bill J, Ding H, Vastola J, DeAngelis GC, Angelaki DE, Drugowitsch J.
bioRxiv
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A large majority of awake hippocampal sharp-wave ripples feature spatial trajectories with momentum.
Authors: Authors: Krause EL, Drugowitsch J.
Neuron
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Interacting with volatile environments stabilizes hidden-state inference and its brain signatures.
Authors: Authors: Weiss A, Chambon V, Lee JK, Drugowitsch J, Wyart V.
Nat Commun
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Optimal policy for attention-modulated decisions explains human fixation behavior.
Authors: Authors: Jang AI, Sharma R, Drugowitsch J.
Elife
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Human visual motion perception shows hallmarks of Bayesian structural inference.
Authors: Authors: Yang S, <a href="https://connects.catalyst.harvard.edu/Profiles/profile/87841848">Bill J</a>, <a href="https://connects.catalyst.harvard.edu/Profiles/profile/59923576">Drugowitsch J</a>, Gershman SJ.
Sci Rep
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