Assistant Professor
Department of Neuroscience, University of Pittsburgh
Center for Neuroscience, University of Pittsburgh
Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition

Email: runyan AT pitt DOT edu
Mail: A210 Langley Hall, University of Pittsburgh, 5th and Ruskin, Pittsburgh, PA 15260

Open Positions
Technician
Postdoctoral Associate

Research Interests
How does the brain flexibly guide behavior in our constantly changing environment? I study communication between cortical networks at the levels of synapses and circuits; to answer questions like, how inter-network communication is shaped by context, inhibitory circuits, and brain state? I use two-photon imaging to study activity in neural populations across the cortex as mice perform multimodal perceptual decision-making tasks.

Papers

• Runyan, C.A., Piasini, E., Panzeri, S., & Harvey, C.D.
  Distinct timescales of population coding across cortex.
  Nature, 2017


• Banerjee, A., Rikhye, R.V., Breton-Provencher, V., Tang, X., Li, C., Li, X., Runyan, C.A., Fu, Z., Jaenisch, R., & Sur, M.
  Jointly reduced inhibition and excitation underlies circuit-wide changes in cortical processing in Rett Syndrome.
  PNAS, 2016


• El-Boustani, S., Wilson, N.R., Runyan, C.A., & Sur, M.
  El-Boustani et al. Reply.
  Nature, 2014


• Runyan, C.A., & Sur, M.
  Response selectivity is correlated to dendritic structure in parvalbumin-expressing inhibitory neurons in visual cortex
  Journal of Neuroscience, 2013


• Wilson, N.R., Schummers, J., Runyan, C.A., Yan, S., Chen, R., Deng, Y., & Sur, M.
  Two-way communication with neural networks in vivo using focused light
  Nature Protocols, 2013


• Roy, D., Tjandra, Y., Mergenthaler, K., Petravicz, J., Runyan, C.A., Wilson, N.R., Sur, M., & Obermayer, K.
  Afferent specificity, feature specific connectivity influence orientation selectivity: A computational study in mouse primary visual cortex.
  arXiv, 2013


• Wilson, N.R.*, Runyan, C.A.*, Wang, F.L., & Sur, M.
  Division and subtraction by distinct cortical inhibitory networks in vivo.
  Nature, 2012


• Runyan, C. A.*, Schummers, J.*, Van Wart, A.*, Kuhlman, S. J., Wilson, N. R., Huang, Z. J., & Sur, M.
  Response features of parvalbumin-expressing interneurons suggest precise roles for subtypes of inhibition in visual cortex
  Neuron, 2010


• Zheng H.W., Malik W.Q., Runyan, C.A., Sur, M., & Brown, E.N.
  Modeling two-photon calcium fluorescence of episodic V1 recordings using multifrequency analysis.
  Conf Proc Eng Med Biol Soc, 2011


• Conklin, S.M., Runyan, C., Leonard, S., Reddy, R., Muldoon, M., & Yao, J.K.
  Age-related changed in n-3 and n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids in the anterior cingulate cortex of individuals with major depressive disorder
  Prostaglandins Leukot Essent Fatty Acids, 2010