Anthony Zador
Professor
The Alle Davis and Maxine Harrison Professor of Neurosciences
M.D., Ph.D., Yale University, 1994
[email protected] | 516-367-6950
My lab studies how circuitry in the brain gives rise to complex behaviors, one of nature鈥檚 great mysteries. We study how the auditory cortex processes sound, and how this is interrupted in autism. We also seek to obtain a wiring diagram of the mouse brain at the resolution of individual neurons. Our unusual approach exploits cheap and rapid 鈥渘ext-gen鈥 gene sequencing technology.
Anthony Zador and colleagues study how brain circuitry gives rise to complex behavior. Work in the lab is focused on two main areas. First, they ask how the cortex processes sound, how that processing is modulated by attention, and how it is disrupted in neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism. Recently, the lab found that when a rat makes a decision about a sound, the information needed to make the decision is passed to a particular subset of neurons in the auditory cortex whose axons project to a structure called the striatum. In the second major line of work in the Zador lab, they are developing new methods for determining the complete wiring instructions of the mouse brain at single-neuron resolution, which they term the 鈥淐onnectome.鈥 In contrast to previous methods, which make use of microscopy, these methods exploit high-throughput DNA sequencing. Because the costs of DNA sequencing are plummeting so rapidly, these methods have the potential to yield the complete wiring diagram of an entire brain for just thousands of dollars.
What makes a mouse sing?
May 7, 2026
Yes, some mice can sing. Listen to their songs as heard by the recent CSHL School of Biological Sciences graduate who studies them.
Meet the School of Biological Sciences Class of 2026
May 7, 2026
This year鈥檚 six Ph.D. recipients reflect on their time and experiences at CSHL.
What can singing mice say about human speech?
May 6, 2026
It turns out that the emergence of remarkably complex behaviors may only require a simple evolutionary hack.
A new theory of brain development
March 2, 2026
How does a single cell grow into such a complex organ? For CSHL postdoc Stan Kerstjens, a simple explanation hits close to home.
School of Biological Sciences launches BioAI Ph.D. program
December 4, 2025
The new degree program will equip math, physics, and engineering students with the tools needed to make groundbreaking biomedical discoveries.
Worldwide collaboration, brain-wide technology
September 18, 2025
CSHL neuroscientists, current and former, contributed to two major brain-mapping studies recently published in Nature and featured on CNN.
At the Lab: AI evolves
May 20, 2025
CSHL neuroscientists discuss the biological brain鈥檚 multibillion-year advantage over AI鈥攁nd the new algorithm they built based on that concept.
A perception quiz to blow your mind
March 26, 2025
Ready to think differently about how you see, smell, hear, taste, touch, and make sense of the world around you?
The next evolution of AI begins with ours
November 25, 2024
How do innate abilities get passed down? Cold Spring Harbor neuroscientists have devised a solution that could lead to faster artificial intelligence.
Great minds think AI
October 16, 2024
Innovators and thought leaders in the fields of artificial intelligence and neuroscience came together for a meeting at 黑料吃瓜资源.
All Publications
11 Sep 2025 | bioRxiv
Zhang, Anqi; Zador, Anthony;
Sep 2025 | Nature | 645(8079):192-200
Findling, Charles; Hubert, Felix; International Brain Laboratory; Acerbi, Luigi; Benson, Brandon; Benson, Julius; Birman, Daniel; Bonacchi, Niccolò; Buchanan, E; Bruijns, Sebastian; Carandini, Matteo; Catarino, Joana; Chapuis, Gaelle; Churchland, Anne; Dan, Yang; Davatolhagh, Felicia; DeWitt, Eric; Engel, Tatiana; Fabbri, Michele; Faulkner, Mayo; Fiete, Ila; Freitas-Silva, Laura; Gerçek, Berk; Harris, Kenneth; Häusser, Michael; Hofer, Sonja; Hu, Fei; Huntenburg, Julia; Khanal, Anup; Krasniak, Chris; Langdon, Christopher; Langfield, Christopher; Latham, Peter; Lau, Petrina; Mainen, Zach; Meijer, Guido; Miska, Nathaniel; Mrsic-Flogel, Thomas; Noel, Jean-Paul; Nylund, Kai; Pan-Vazquez, Alejandro; Paninski, Liam; Pillow, Jonathan; Rossant, Cyrille; Roth, Noam; Schaeffer, Rylan; Schartner, Michael; Shi, Yanliang; Socha, Karolina; Steinmetz, Nicholas; Svoboda, Karel; Tessereau, Charline; Urai, Anne; Wells, Miles; West, Steven; Whiteway, Matthew; Winter, Olivier; Witten, Ilana; Zador, Anthony; Zhang, Yizi; Dayan, Peter; Pouget, Alexandre;
19 Aug 2025 | bioRxiv
Benjamin, Ari; Zador, Anthony;
27 Sep 2024 | Nature Communications | 15(1):8371
Yuan, Li; Chen, Xiaoyin; Zhan, Huiqing; Henry, Gilbert; Zador, Anthony;
17 Sep 2024 | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America | 121(38):e2409160121
Shuvaev, Sergey; Lachi, Divyansha; Koulakov, Alexei; Zador, Anthony;
14 Sep 2024 | bioRxiv
Banerjee, Arkarup; Isko, Emily; Harpole, Clifford; Zheng, Xiaoyue; Zhan, Huiqing; Davis, Martin; Zador, Anthony;
Jul 2024 | Nature Methods | 21(7):1316-1328
Biderman, Dan; Whiteway, Matthew; Hurwitz, Cole; Greenspan, Nicholas; Lee, Robert; Vishnubhotla, Ankit; Warren, Richard; Pedraja, Federico; Noone, Dillon; Schartner, Michael; Huntenburg, Julia; Khanal, Anup; Meijer, Guido; Noel, Jean-Paul; Pan-Vazquez, Alejandro; Socha, Karolina; Urai, Anne; International Brain Laboratory; Cunningham, John; Sawtell, Nathaniel; Paninski, Liam;
24 Apr 2024 | Nature
Chen, Xiaoyin; Fischer, Stephan; Rue, Mara; Zhang, Aixin; Mukherjee, Didhiti; Kanold, Patrick; Gillis, Jesse; Zador, Anthony;
27 Feb 2024 | The Transmitter
Zador, Anthony;
Dec 2023 | PLoS Biology | 21(12):e3002384
Zhang, Anqi; Zador, Anthony; Klausberger, Thomas;