Cynthia F. Moss, PhD

Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences

Specialization: Comparative neural systems and behavior

Contact

Comparative Neural Systems and Behavior Lab, aka Batlab

3400 N. Charles Street, Ames Hall

Baltimore, MD 21218

cynthia.moss@jhu.edu

More Info

How does the brain represent dynamic sensory information from the natural environment?  How are sensory and motor activity patterns coordinated to direct actions in 3D space? 

My lab investigates these questions through studies of echolocating bats, animals that track moving targets, forage, find roosts and navigate in diverse habitats by producing high frequency sounds and listening to information carried by echo returns.  Bats exhibit a rich display of natural sensory-guided behaviors, which we capture in high-speed audio and video recordings of animals engaged in target discrimination and tracking, obstacle avoidance, navigation, and social interactions.  Our interdisciplinary research exploits state-of-the art tools, such as multichannel wireless neural telemetry recordings from free-flying animals, to discover mechanisms of scene analysis, spatial attention, learning/memory, action selection, sensorimotor integration, and flight control. 

 

Representative publications:

Allen, K.M., Lawlor, J., Salles, A., Moss, C.F.  Orienting our view of the superior colliculus: Specializations and general functions, Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2021.10.005.

Salles, A., Diebold, C., and Moss, C.F. Echolocating bats accumulate information from acoustic snapshots to predict auditory object motion. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2020, https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2011719117

Luo, J., Macias, S., Ness, T.V., Einevoll, G.T., Zhang, K. and Moss, C.F. Neural timing of stimulus events with microsecond precision, Public Library of Science Biology, 2018, doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2006422

Kothari, N.B., Wohlgemuth, M.J., and Moss, C.F.  Dynamic representation of 3D auditory space in the midbrain of the free-flying echolocating bat, eLife, 2018; 7:e29053. HTTPS://DOI.ORG/ https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.29053

Luo, J., Kothari, N.B. and Moss, C.F. Sensorimotor integration on a rapid time scale.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1702671114

Sterbing-D’Angelo, S.J., Chadha, M., Falk, B. Barcelo, J, Zook, J.M. and Moss, C.F., Bat wing sensors support flight control, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2011, 108 (27): 11291-11296, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1018740108

Yovel, Y., Falk, B., Moss, C.F., and Ulanovksy, N.  Optimal localization by pointing off axis, Science, 2010, Vol. 327. no. 5966, 701 -704, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1183310

Ulanovsky, N. and Moss, C.F.   What the bat’s voice tells the bat’s brain.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2008, 105: 8491-8498, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0703550105

Ulanovsky, N and Moss, C.F. Hippocampal cellular and network activity in freely-moving echolocating bats, Nature Neuroscience, 2007, 10(2): 224-233, https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1829

Ghose, K. Horiuchi, T.K., Krishnaprasad, P.S. and Moss, C.F. Echolocating bats use a nearly time-optimal strategy to intercept prey.  Public Library of Science Biology, 2006, 4(5): 865-873, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0040108

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