Researcher

Karel Svoboda

Profile

Karel Svoboda is a Senior Investigator and Executive Director of Research at the Allen Institute for Neural Dynamics, formerly a Group Leader at HHMI Janelia Research Campus where he spent two decades pioneering in vivo two-photon calcium imaging of neural circuits in behaving mice. His laboratory developed and refined many of the fundamental techniques for imaging dendritic integration and action potential propagation in single neurons in vivo — work that transformed understanding of how individual cells participate in computation. Svoboda pioneered all-optical interrogation of neural circuits, combining two-photon imaging with optogenetics to simultaneously read and write neural activity, enabling causal tests of circuit function. His group characterized how sensory cortex encodes whisker touch in mice, providing one of the clearest accounts of sensory coding in a mammalian brain. At the Allen Institute, Svoboda now leads large-scale collaborative efforts to map neural circuit dynamics underlying cognition and movement using standardized, high-throughput neurophysiology platforms. He is a major buyer and often co-developer of custom two-photon microscopes, multiphoton laser systems, silicon electrode arrays, and behavioral tracking hardware. Svoboda has received the Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize, the Society for Neuroscience Young Investigator Award, and election to the National Academy of Sciences.

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