Communication is an essential part of our daily lives. Our ability to communicate shapes our interactions with our environment and with members of our social groups. Despite this, we know little about how multisensory natural signals integrate in the brain to inform moment-by-moment social decisions. How are sensory signals integrated over time during a social encounter? How is social communication influenced by environmental context, internal motivation, and previous experience?

Our research is focused on identifying neural mechanisms for the processing and production of socially meaningful communication at the level of circuits, cells, and molecules.