Paul S. Katz

About

Paul S. Katz is a professor involved in neuroscience research at UMass Amherst, with a focus on understanding neural circuits and behavior. His lab, Katz Lab, explores various aspects of neurobiology, including connectomics, neurogenesis, transcriptomics, and the neural basis of behavior in different organisms such as Berghia and other model systems. His work emphasizes collaborative discovery, teaching, and learning within a team environment, contributing to the broader scientific understanding of neural function and organization.

Research topics

• Biology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Neuroscience
• Computer Science
• Biophysics
• Pathology
• Medicine
• Chemistry
• Physics
• Optics

Selected publications

• Behavior-related gene regulatory networks: A new level of organization in the brain

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2020 · 86 citations

  -regulatory architecture underlies this special class of behavior, and review literature that suggests an affirmative answer.

  DOI

• Evolution of cephalopod nervous systems

  Current Biology · 2023-10-01 · 15 citations

  reviewOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Giant brains have independently evolved twice on this planet, in vertebrates and in cephalopods (Figure 1A). Thus, the brains and nervous systems of cephalopods provide an important counterpoint to vertebrates in the search for generalities of brain organization and function. Their mere existence disproves various hypotheses proposed to explain the evolution of the mind and the human brain, such as cognition and large brains evolved only in long-lived animals with complex social systems and pare…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• mEMbrain: an interactive deep learning MATLAB tool for connectomic segmentation on commodity desktops

  Frontiers in Neural Circuits · 2023-06-15 · 14 citations

  articleOpen access

  Connectomics is fundamental in propelling our understanding of the nervous system's organization, unearthing cells and wiring diagrams reconstructed from volume electron microscopy (EM) datasets. Such reconstructions, on the one hand, have benefited from ever more precise automatic segmentation methods, which leverage sophisticated deep learning architectures and advanced machine learning algorithms. On the other hand, the field of neuroscience at large, and of image processing in particular, ha…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A chromosome-level genome for the nudibranch gastropod Berghia stephanieae helps parse clade-specific gene expression in novel and conserved phenotypes

  BMC Biology · 2024-01-17 · 12 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: How novel phenotypes originate from conserved genes, processes, and tissues remains a major question in biology. Research that sets out to answer this question often focuses on the conserved genes and processes involved, an approach that explicitly excludes the impact of genetic elements that may be classified as clade-specific, even though many of these genes are known to be important for many novel, or clade-restricted, phenotypes. This is especially true for understudied phyla suc…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Consistency of Gastropod Identified Neurons Distinguishes Intra-Individual Plasticity From Inter-Individual Variability in Neural Circuits

  Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience · 2022 · 11 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  , variability over time in the modulatory actions of serotonin and in expression of serotonin receptor genes in an identified neuron directly reflects variation in swimming behavior. Tracking behavior and electrophysiology over hours to days was necessary to identify the functional consequences of these intra-individual, time-dependent variations. This work demonstrates the importance of unambiguous neuron identification, properly assessing the animal and network states, and tracking behavior an…

  DOI

Recent grants

• Evolution of Neural Circuits for Locomotion

  NSF · $526k · 2005–2008

• CRCNS data sharing: Comparative Neuromics of Gastropod Molluscs

  NSF · $223k · 2008–2011

• Evolution of Neural Circuits for Locomotion

  NSF · $523k · 2008–2013

Frequent coauthors

• Akira Sakurai

  Georgia State University

  27 shared

• Sweden Jessen

  Malmö University

  25 shared

• M. Desmond Ramirez

  University of Massachusetts Amherst

  13 shared

• Robert Calin‐Jageman

  11 shared

• James M. Newcomb

  10 shared

• Arianna N. Tamvacakis

  University of Arkansas at Fayetteville

  9 shared

• William N. Frost

  Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science

  9 shared

• Adriano Senatore

  University of Toronto

  8 shared

Labs

• Paul S. Katz's LabPI

  The lab focuses on the structure, function, development, and evolution of nervous systems.

Education

• PhD, Neurobiology and Behavior

  Cornell University

  1989

Similar researchers at University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Lynn Adlerh-43
• R. Craig Albertsonh-41
• Courtney C. Babbitth-20