Ole Christian Sylte

Ole Christian Sylte is a postdoctoral researcher in the Stephenson-Jones lab. His research focuses on understanding how the brain transforms spatial knowledge into flexible goal-directed actions, specifically investigating how hippocampal representations of space are converted into navigation decisions through downstream targets. He uses a population-level approach to study this transformation, employing Neuropixels recordings and optogenetics in freely moving mice.

During his PhD at the University of Freiburg in the labs of Marlene Bartos and Jonas-Frederic Sauer, Ole discovered that representational drift in hippocampal place cells occurs in a coordinated manner that preserves population geometry, allowing stable downstream readouts despite unstable individual neurons. He also showed that prefrontal cortex responses to threat remain stable over repeated exposures.