Britton Sauerbrei

Britton Sauerbrei is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurosciences at Case Western Reserve University's School of Medicine. Their research focuses on understanding the neural circuits governing skilled motor control, particularly how distributed neural networks enable adaptive movement and how these dynamics are disrupted in neurodegenerative diseases. They employ high-density electrophysiological recordings, optogenetic manipulation, and computational modeling to study neural ensemble activity during natural behaviors.

Education:

• Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics, University of Chicago (2009)
• PhD in Computation and Neural Systems, California Institute of Technology (2015)

Research Interests: The lab investigates principles underlying neural activity flow in motor control circuits, with emphasis on cerebellar-cortical interactions and disease-related alterations. Techniques include Neuropixels recording probes, optogenetics, and computational methods like adaptive functional PCA.

Key Findings: Recent work demonstrates the cerebellum's role in discontinuous movement control and reveals input-driven cortical dynamics during dexterous tasks. Innovations include the development of high-density neural probes (Neuropixels 2.0) and novel motor unit recording devices.

Lab & Collaborations: The Sauerbrei Lab actively explores neurodegenerative disease models and sensorimotor integration mechanisms. Collaborative projects focus on translating findings to understand movement disorders and developing computational tools for neural data analysis.