The Sosa Lab studies how the brain forms, stores, and retrieves memories. We use spatial navigation in behaving rodents as a model system to uncover how information is learned and recalled for decision-making at the level of single neurons, neural circuits, and systems. We are particularly interested in how memory processes flexibly adapt in response to cognitive goals, emotional states, and physiological demands on the brain and body. 

A branch of the lab focuses on a dramatic physiological demand that is extremely understudied: the effects of pregnancy and the postpartum period on memory and cognition in the maternal brain. Our research spans a variety of systems and circuit neuroscience techniques in mice and rats to understand brain function, including in vivo 2-photon imaging, electrophysiology, circuit manipulations, and computational analysis.