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Physiological understanding of social cognitive functions      

 In order to understand neural mechanisms underlying social cognition at the cellular and network levels, we have developed novel, experimental paradigms in which two monkeys monitor each other's behavior for making their own decisions, while activity of individual neurons is recorded from various brain regions. Our data suggest that the primate brain contains dedicated circuits for processing behavioral information about the self and others.

Neural mechanism of blindsight

  We are also interested in the neursl mechanism underlying blindsight, i.e., a phenomenon known as "vision without awareness". Using monkeys with lesions of the primary visual cortex, we have carried out multidimensional analyses combining psychophysics, electrophysiology, and brain imaging.