Brandon Weissbourd

Dr. Weissbourd developed a new genetically tractable transparent jellyfish model for systems and evolutionary neuroscience, called Clytia hemisphaerica.  Using whole-jellyfish imaging of population neural activity, he discovered that these jellyfish have an unsuspected parcellation of their seemingly diffuse neural net into a series of "pizza wedge"-like neuronal assemblies, which control localized infolding of of the umbrella to pass trapped food to the central mouth. His work was featured on the cover of Cell.  He is an assistant professor of biology and an investigator at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT. Learn more about his lab here.