Clinical Interests
My work involves building mathematical and computer models of a variety of brain functions.
Much of this work focuses on understanding how neurons can stably maintain activity that reflects
a preceding stimulus, even after this stimulus is no longer present. Such activity is observed in a
wide range of brain regions and its functional roles range from maintaining a short-term memory of
a preceding stimulus (as seen in cortical neurons) to keeping the eyes stable in their orbits so that a
non-blurry view of the world can be gathered by the visual system (as performed by the
oculomotor neural integrator). My models seek to dissect the roles of intrinsic and synaptic
mechanisms in generating such activity, and to understand the plasticity mechanisms that tune the
relevant neuronal circuits. In separate research, I have been working to understand how neurons in
the early visual system represent and encode information about objects in the external world.
Title
Specialty
Associate Professor
Neurobiology
Department
Center for Neuroscience
Center/Program Affiliation
Center for Neuroscience
Address/Phone
Additional Phone
Professional Memberships
Neurosciences Building, 1515 Newton Ct. Davis, CA 95616
Physician Referrals: 800-4-UCDAVIS (800-482-3284)
American Physical Society
Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience
Society for Neuroscience
Select Recent Publications
Lim S, Goldman MS: Noise Tolerance of attractor and fed forward memory models, Neurral
Compilation, 24:332-390, 2012
Goldman MS: Memory without feedback in a neural network, Neuron 61:621-634, 2009.
Goldman MS, Compte A, Wang X-J: Neural integrator models. In: Squire LR (ed.) Encyclopedia of
Neuroscience (Oxford: Academic Press), volume 6, pp. 165-178, 2009.
Aksay E, Olasagasti I, Mensh BD, Baker R, Goldman MS [co-corresponding author], Tank DW:
Functional dissection of circuitry in a neural integrator, Nature Neuroscience 10:494-504, 2007.
Butts DA, Goldman MS: Tuning curves, neuronal variability, and sensory coding, PLoS Biology 4:
e92, 2006.
Goldman MS: Enhancement of information transmission efficiency by synaptic failures, Neural
Computation 16:1137-1162, 2004.
Goldman MS, Levine JH*, Major G, Tank DW, Seung HS: Robust persistent neural activity in a
model integrator with multiple hysteretic dendrites per neuron, Cerebral Cortex 13:1185-1195,
2003.
Aksay E, Major G, Goldman MS, Baker R, Seung HS, Tank DW: History dependence of rate
covariation between neurons during persistent activity in an oculomotor integrator, Cerebral
Cortex 13:1173-1184, 2003.
Goldman MS, Maldonado P, Abbott LF: Redundancy reduction and sustained firing with stochastic
depressing synapses, Journal of Neuroscience 22:584-591, 2002.
Goldman MS, Kaneko CRS, Major G, Aksay E, Tank DW, Seung HS: Linear regression of eye
velocity on eye position and head velocity suggests a common oculomotor neural integrator,
Journal of Neurophysiology 88:659-665, 2002.
Golowasch J, Goldman MS, Abbott LF, Marder E: Failure of averaging in the construction of a
conductance-based neuron model, Journal of Neurophysiology 87: 1129-1131, 2002.
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