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Cellular Drug Efficacy Analysis Lab
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The lab explores how the brain makes predictions, aiming to understand and treat neurological and psychiatric disorders.
AboutAbout the lab
Linking how the brain predicts to understanding disease
The Cellular Drug Efficacy Analysis Lab studies, at the level of neural circuits, how the brain processes and learns from information from the outside world.
The brain predicts its surroundings using an "internal model" built from memory and experience, and it perceives the external world by correcting the error between that prediction and incoming sensory information (prediction error).
Focusing on this predictive function, the lab uses tools such as virtual reality and neural organoids made from human iPS cells to elucidate the pathology of neurological and psychiatric disorders and to develop new treatments.
Students in the Faculty of Science can join the lab from the second half of their third year, and lab tours are accepted at any time.
Key terms
- internal model
- A model built in the brain from information such as movement, memory, and experience, which serves as the basis for predicting the external environment
- prediction error
- The difference between the brain's prediction and the information about the external environment coming in from the sensory organs
- organoid
- Three-dimensional cultured tissue derived from stem cells such as ES cells and iPS cells
- viral vector
- A virus used to introduce genes into the cells of a living organism
NewsLab news
Paper from joint research with the Department of Neurology, Nagoya University, published in Neuroscience Research
Lab paper published in Cell Reports Methods
Lab paper wins the NSR Best Paper Award
Assistant Professor Takeuchi's paper published in Science Advances
Lab paper published in PNAS
ResearchResearch themes
The lab aims to uncover the mechanisms of higher brain functions and information processing, and, building on them, to elucidate the pathology of neurological, psychiatric, and eye diseases and to develop ways to prevent and treat them. Combining physiology, pharmacology, neuroscience, and molecular biology in interdisciplinary research, it analyzes across multiple levels, from molecules and cells to whole organisms and behavior.
*Illustrative imageBrain predictions in ambiguous environments
The lab investigates how animals predict their environment from their own movements, memories, and experiences, and how they change their behavior accordingly. Using virtual reality, it works to clarify how prediction and prediction-error signals are generated and transmitted in the brain.
*Illustrative imageUnderstanding the brain with human neural organoids
The lab creates neural organoids and similar models from monkey ES cells and human iPS cells, and uses them to reconstruct and study brain functions such as synaptic transmission and neural circuits, as well as the process by which neurological and psychiatric disorders develop. It also aims to analyze the causes of disease and to create new therapeutic drugs.
*Illustrative imageDeveloping molecular biology methods for studying the brain
Drawing on genetic engineering and virology, the lab is developing technologies for labeling and manipulating molecules and cells by modifying viral vectors and building its own original systems. It aims to create new technologies useful for neuroscience and gene therapy.
*Illustrative imageMethods for observing and manipulating cells with light
In joint development with RIKEN, the lab is developing optical systems useful for neuroscience and for treating diseases of the nervous system, including wide-field one-photon microscopes, multifocal-plane two-photon microscopes, and optical patterned stimulation systems.
MembersFaculty
The Cellular Drug Efficacy Analysis Lab consists of faculty members, researchers, doctoral and master's students, and secretaries.As of 2026
- ProfessorFumitaka Osakada
- Assistant ProfessorRyosuke Takeuchi
VoicesStudent voices
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Virtual reality headset” FloppaIngénieur / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Brain predictions in ambiguous environments: “Fluorescently Labeled Microglia in a Coronal Brain Section from a C57 Mouse” Syed07 / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Understanding the brain with human neural organoids: “Human Brain Organoid” Nreis1 / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Developing molecular biology methods for studying the brain: “Células HEK293” Brandon Antonio Segura Torres & Priscilla Vieto Bonilla / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Methods for observing and manipulating cells with light: “Microscope à fluorescence (Ifremer )” Olivier Dugornay / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Endocrine Signaling Lab): “Drosophila melanogaster under a microscope 01” Gannu03 / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Organ Function Lab): “Biology lab Cedar Point Biological Station” Scott L. Gardner / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Genetics Lab): “Culture vials of Drosophila melanogaster in Unifei” Mateus S. Figueiredo / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Time-Controlling Molecules Lab): “Toluene-3D-molecular-model-engraved-render-CAS-108-88-3” MolGod Scientific / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
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