Edward Matthew Callaway

Dr. Edward Callaway is a Professor in Systems Neurobiology and Vincent J. Coates Chair at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. His research seeks to understand how neural circuits give rise to perception and behavior, focusing primarily on the organization and function of neural circuits in the visual cortex. Callaway has contributed to scientific understanding of the fine-scale organization of neuronal circuits that mediate complex visual, perceptual, cognitive, and behavioral functions. His lab uses a variety of anatomical, physiological, and molecular/genetic techniques to describe cell-type specificity of neuronal connections in the cerebral cortex and to reveal basic principles of neuronal computation through local neuronal circuits. Callaway's discovery that functional neuronal connections are dictated by cell type and position in the cerebral cortex overturned the prevailing view of generalized connectivity patterns derived from light microscopy.

The Callaway lab is currently focused on three areas of study: (1) relationships between local circuits in primary visual cortex and early parallel visual pathways; (2) functional propertied of the koniocellular visual pathway and its contributions to color vision; (3) connectivity and functional influence of distinct types of inhibitory cortical neurons. 

Dr. Callaway received his BS from Stanford in 1984 and his PhD from the California Institute of Technology in 1988. He conducted his post-doc in the labs of Dr. Larry Katz at Rockefeller University and Duke University. He is also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. His articles appear in Nature, Nature Neuroscience Reviews, Nature Methods, Neuron, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.