Overview
Ruben Portugues studied mathematics and theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge, where he also earned his PhD in string theory in 2004. After a 2-year physics postdoc in Chile, he switched fields and joined the laboratory of Florian Engert at Harvard University in 2006 for a postdoc in larval zebrafish neurobiology. In 2014 he became an independent PI at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried, outside Munich, and in 2020 he became Professor of Brain Circuit Function and Dysfunction at the Technical University of Munich. In 2025, he joined the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell as Full Professor. He is dedicated to teaching at Cornell and at summer courses such as TENSS, Neural Systems and Behavior at MBL and has been an instructor of the Cold Spring Harbor summer course on Imaging the Structure and Function in the Nervous System (2020-2025).
Research Focus
Processes such as decision-making, action selection, navigation and learning, epitomize what many consider higher brain functions. A common feature of these processes is that they are extended in time. The brain must therefore represent relevant features in terms of persistent neuronal activity that can be flexibly updated, based on momentary sensory input, internal state and behavioral need. How are brain circuits arranged to be able to support this function and how is this activity subsequently used to implement behavior?
In the lab we use larval zebrafish and mice as model organisms to investigate these questions. In our day-to-day, we leverage a range of techniques that include behavioral analysis, functional calcium imaging, electrophysiology, optogenetics, genetic and structural mapping of circuits, modeling and theory. We believe that: (i) brain function should be understood in the context of behavior, (ii) evolution is a valuable dimension and comparative systems neuroscience experiments can provide deep insight and a very gratifying level of understanding.
