Anthony Zador
Professor
The Alle Davis and Maxine Harrison Professor of Neurosciences
M.D., Ph.D., Yale University, 1994
zador@cshl.edu | 516-367-6950
My lab studies how circuitry in the brain gives rise to complex behaviors, one of nature’s great mysteries. We study how the auditory cortex processes sound, and how this is interrupted in autism. We also seek to obtain a wiring diagram of the mouse brain at the resolution of individual neurons. Our unusual approach exploits cheap and rapid “next-gen” gene sequencing technology.
Anthony Zador and colleagues study how brain circuitry gives rise to complex behavior. Work in the lab is focused on two main areas. First, they ask how the cortex processes sound, how that processing is modulated by attention, and how it is disrupted in neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism. Recently, the lab found that when a rat makes a decision about a sound, the information needed to make the decision is passed to a particular subset of neurons in the auditory cortex whose axons project to a structure called the striatum. In the second major line of work in the Zador lab, they are developing new methods for determining the complete wiring instructions of the mouse brain at single-neuron resolution, which they term the “Connectome.” In contrast to previous methods, which make use of microscopy, these methods exploit high-throughput DNA sequencing. Because the costs of DNA sequencing are plummeting so rapidly, these methods have the potential to yield the complete wiring diagram of an entire brain for just thousands of dollars.
Is today’s AI actually intelligent or just acting?
June 1, 2023
Before it can change the world, AI must learn to walk. To help get it there, Professor Anthony Zador has proposed a new ‘embodied’ Turing test.
President’s essay: Bringing bold visions to life
May 26, 2023
CSHL President & CEO Bruce Stillman sees the Laboratory as a global hub for scientific expertise and a powerful launchpad for early-career scientists.
A bridge to the future of autism research
May 18, 2023
With access to premier technology and expertise, CSHL primes early-career scientists for breakthrough studies of autism spectrum disorder.
From Her to Here: CSHL talks AI at Cinema Arts Centre
May 11, 2023
June 3: The Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, NY presents a screening of sci-fi romance Her with a talk on AI by CSHL neuroscientist Anthony Zador.
Follow your nose: Tracking the brain’s smell circuits
February 27, 2023
Take this 8-bit trip along the brain’s olfactory circuits to see what happens up there when you smell something.
Can you outsmart this AI quiz?
February 6, 2023
Think you’re plugged into the latest artificial intelligence advancements? Test your tech knowledge with this quiz on AI and computational biology.
Mapping the path from smell to perception
October 27, 2022
Smell remains the most mysterious of our five senses, but CSHL neuroscientists are now closer than ever to understanding it.
LIVE At the Lab: NeuroAI: Learning from the brain and AI
July 6, 2022
A recorded webinar featuring CSHL Professor Anthony Zador on how lessons from the brain can help build better artificial intelligence programs.
Beautiful brain
June 15, 2022
CSHL Professor Anthony Zador has developed mapping and barcoding technologies that identify brain cell connections.
Building better AI with the power of neuroscience
June 8, 2022
Artificial Intelligence (AI) experts at CSHL are creating better AI by deciphering brain circuits.
All Publications
Catalyzing next-generation Artificial Intelligence through NeuroAI.
22 Mar 2023 | Nature Communications | 14(1):1597
Zador, Anthony, Escola, Sean, Richards, Blake, Ölveczky, Bence, Bengio, Yoshua, Boahen, Kwabena, Botvinick, Matthew, Chklovskii, Dmitri, Churchland, Anne, Clopath, Claudia, DiCarlo, James, Ganguli, Surya, Hawkins, Jeff, Körding, Konrad, Koulakov, Alexei, LeCun, Yann, Lillicrap, Timothy, Marblestone, Adam, Olshausen, Bruno, Pouget, Alexandre, Savin, Cristina, Sejnowski, Terrence, Simoncelli, Eero, Solla, Sara, Sussillo, David, Tolias, Andreas, Tsao, Doris
Massive Multiplexing of Spatially Resolved Single Neuron Projections with Axonal BARseq.
18 Feb 2023 | bioRxiv
Yuan, Li, Chen, Xiaoyin, Zhan, Huiqing, Gilbert, Henry, Zador, Anthony
Charles F. Stevens (1934-2022).
Feb 2023 | Nature Neuroscience | 26(2):176-177
Zador, Anthony
A modular architecture for organizing, processing and sharing neurophysiology data
1 Jan 2023 | Nature Methods | 20(3):403-407
Acerbi, L, Aguillon-Rodriguez, V, Ahmadi, M, Amjad, J, Angelaki, D, Arlandis, J, Ashwood, Z, Banga, K, Barrell, H, Bayer, H, Benson, J, Benson, B, Bhagat, J, Birman, D, Bougrova, K, Boussard, J, Bruijns, S, Carandini, M, Catarino, J, Cazettes, F, Dan, Y, Davatolagh, F, Dayan, P, Denève, S, Dong, L, Engel, T, Fabbri, M, Fiete, I, Findling, C, Freitas-Silva, L, Ganguli, S, Gercek, B, Ghani, N, Gordeliy, I, Haetzel, L, Hausser, M, Hiratani, N, Hofer, S, Hu, F, Huber, F, Hurwitz, C, Khanal, A, Krasniak, C, Krishnagopal, S, Krumin, M, Langdon, C, Latham, P, Lau, P, Lee, H, Liu, A, Mainen, Z, Vergara, H, Mcgrory, C, McMannon, B, Meijer, G, Melin, M, Meshulam, L, Miska, N, Mitelut, C, Mohammadi, Z, Mrsic-Flogel, T, Murakami, M, Noel, J, Nylund, K, Vazquez, A, Paninski, L, Pezzotta, A, Picard, S, Pillow, J, Pouget, A, Roth, N, Roy, N, Saniee, K, Schaeffer, R, Shi, Y, Socha, K, Soitu, C, Svoboda, K, Taheri, M, Tessereau, C, Urai, A, Varol, E, Wells, M, Whiteway, M, Windolf, C, Witten, I, Wool, L, Zador, A, Bonacchi, N, Chapuis, G, Churchland, A, DeWitt, E, Faulkner, M, Harris, K, Huntenburg, J, Hunter, M, Laranjeira, I, Rossant, C, Sasaki, M, Schartner, M
Next-generation brain observatories
Oct 2022 | Neuron
Koch, Christof, Svoboda, Karel, Bernard, Amy, Basso, Michele, Churchland, Anne, Fairhall, Adrienne, Groblewski, Peter, Lecoq, Jérôme, Mainen, Zachary, Mathis, Mackenzie, Olsen, Shawn, Phillips, John, Pouget, Alexandre, Saxena, Shreya, Siegle, Josh, Zador, Anthony
Modular cell type organization of cortical areas revealed by in situ sequencing
2022 | bioRxiv
Chen, Xiaoyin, Fischer, Stephan, Zhang, Aixin, Gillis, Jesse, Zador, Anthony
High-throughput sequencing of single neuron projections reveals spatial organization in the olfactory cortex
27 Oct 2022 | Cell | 185(22):4117-4134.e28
Chen, Yushu, Chen, Xiaoyin, Baserdem, Batuhan, Zhan, Huiqing, Li, Yan, Davis, Martin, Kebschull, Justus, Zador, Anthony, Koulakov, Alexei, Albeanu, Dinu
The application of artificial intelligence to biology and neuroscience
21 Jul 2022 | Cell | 185(15):2640-2643
Richards, Blake, Tsao, Doris, Zador, Anthony
Cellular anatomy of the mouse primary motor cortex.
Oct 2021 | Nature | 598(7879):159-166
Muñoz-Castañeda, Rodrigo, Zingg, Brian, Matho, Katherine, Chen, Xiaoyin, Wang, Quanxin, Foster, Nicholas, Li, Anan, Narasimhan, Arun, Hirokawa, Karla, Huo, Bingxing, Bannerjee, Samik, Korobkova, Laura, Park, Chris, Park, Young-Gyun, Bienkowski, Michael, Chon, Uree, Wheeler, Diek, Li, Xiangning, Wang, Yun, Naeemi, Maitham, Xie, Peng, Liu, Lijuan, Kelly, Kathleen, An, Xu, Attili, Sarojini, Bowman, Ian, Bludova, Anastasiia, Cetin, Ali, Ding, Liya, Drewes, Rhonda, D'Orazi, Florence, Elowsky, Corey, Fischer, Stephan, Galbavy, William, Gao, Lei, Gillis, Jesse, Groblewski, Peter, Gou, Lin, Hahn, Joel, Hatfield, Joshua, Hintiryan, Houri, Huang, Junxiang, Kondo, Hideki, Kuang, Xiuli, Lesnar, Philip, Li, Xu, Li, Yaoyao, Lin, Mengkuan, Lo, Darrick, Mizrachi, Judith, Mok, Stephanie, Nicovich, Philip, Palaniswamy, Ramesh, Palmer, Jason, Qi, Xiaoli, Shen, Elise, Sun, Yu-Chi, Tao, Huizhong, Wakemen, Wayne, Wang, Yimin, Yao, Shenqin, Yuan, Jing, Zhan, Huiqing, Zhu, Muye, Ng, Lydia, Zhang, Li, Lim, Byung, Hawrylycz, Michael, Gong, Hui, Gee, James, Kim, Yongsoo, Chung, Kwanghun, Yang, X, Peng, Hanchuan, Luo, Qingming, Mitra, Partha, Zador, Anthony, Zeng, Hongkui, Ascoli, Giorgio, Josh Huang, Z, Osten, Pavel, Harris, Julie, Dong, Hong-Wei
Assessing the replicability of spatial gene expression using atlas data from the adult mouse brain.
19 Jul 2021 | PLoS Biology | 19(7):e3001341
Lu, Shaina, Ortiz, Cantin, Fürth, Daniel, Fischer, Stephan, Meletis, Konstantinos, Zador, Anthony, Gillis, Jesse