The department has superb in-depth expertise in the anatomical, physiological and behavioural techniques required for investigating the functional neural circuitry, particularly at the level of the cerebral cortex that underlies perception and behaviour, the coding of information in those circuits and the way in which they develop and are shaped by experience. These approaches are complemented by the application of optogenetic methods for studying information processing in explanted tissues. Several groups have a particular interest in decision-making and adaptive behaviour and are studying these fundamental issues from different angles and in different experimental settings.