Ruben Portugues was born in Madrid, Spain. He studied Mathematics at Trinity College in the University of Cambridge, where he also obtained his PhD in theoretical physics in 2004, studying soliton solution in M-theory. After a short postdoc in theoretical physics at Centro de Estudios Cientificos in Valdivia, Chile, in 2006 he moved to the laboratory of Florian Engert at Harvard University to pursue a postdoc in neurobiology. There he investigated sensorimotor integration in the larval zebrafish, pioneering approaches to perform whole-brain imaging in behaving animals with single-cell resolution, in order to correlate behavior and brain activity. In 2014, he moved to the Max Planck of Neurobiology in Martinsried to lead the Research Group of Sensorimotor Control and, in January 2020, he became a Professor at the Institute of Neuroscience of the Technical University of Munich.
Selected Awards
Research Interests
Ruben Portugues is interested in how the brain encodes representations of the external world and how these representations are used to select motor actions and modify behavior. His group uses functional calcium imaging and electrophysiology to monitor the activity of neurons in the brain as animals perform a variety of tasks. These experiments are able to record the activity of almost all 100.000 neurons in the brain of these small vertebrates. In addition, he utilizes modeling and computational approaches to understand this data and generate biological hypothesis that can be tested using ablations and optogenetic manipulations.
Selected Publications
A neural representation of naturalistic motion-guided behavior in the zebrafish brain T Yildizoglu, C Riegler, JE Fitzgerald, R Portugues Current Biology 30 (12), 2321-2333 – [2020]
Evidence accumulation during a sensorimotor decision task revealed by whole-brain imaging EI Dragomir, V Štih, R Portugues Nature Neuroscience 23 (1), 85-93 – [2020]
Motor context dominates output from Purkinje cell functional regions during reflexive visuomotor behaviors LD Knogler, AM Kist, R Portugues eLife 8, e42138 – [2019]
A novel mechanism for mechanosensory-based rheotaxis in larval zebrafish. P Oteiza, I Odstrcil, G Lauder, R Portugues, F Engert Nature 547 (7664), 445 – [2017]
Sensorimotor representations in cerebellar granule cells in larval zebrafish are dense, spatially organized, and non-temporally patterned LD Knogler, DA Markov, EI Dragomir, V Štih, R Portugues Current Biology 27 (9), 1288-1302 – [2017]
Neural control and modulation of swimming speed in the larval zebrafish KE Severi, R Portugues, JC Marques, DM O’Malley, MB Orger, F Engert Neuron 83 (3), 692-707 – [2014]
Whole-brain activity maps reveal stereotyped, distributed networks for visuomotor behavior R Portugues, CE Feierstein, F Engert, MB Orger Neuron 81 (6), 1328-1343 – [2014]
Brain-wide neuronal dynamics during motor adaptation in zebrafish MB Ahrens, JM Li, MB Orger, DN Robson, AF Schier, F Engert, R Portugues Nature 485 (7399), 471-477 – [2012]
Adaptive locomotor behavior in larval zebrafish R Portugues, F Engert Frontiers in systems neuroscience 5 – [2011]
Claudi, Federico; Tyson, Adam L; Petrucco, Luigi; Margrie, Troy W; Portugues, Ruben; Branco, Tiago: Visualizing anatomically registered data with brainrender. eLife 10, 2021 more…BibTeX
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Odstrcil, Iris; Petkova, Mariela D.; Haesemeyer, Martin; Boulanger-Weill, Jonathan; Nikitchenko, Maxim; Gagnon, James A.; Oteiza, Pablo; Schalek, Richard; Peleg, Adi; Portugues, Ruben; Lichtman, Jeff; Engert, Florian: Functional and ultrastructural analysis of reafferent mechanosensation in larval zebrafish. bioRxiv, 2021 more…BibTeX
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Xiao, Yan; Hoodless, Laura J; Petrucco, Luigi; Portugues, Ruben; Czopka, Tim: Oligodendrocyte Precursor Cells Sculpt the Visual System by Regulating Axonal Remodeling. bioRxiv, 2021 more…BibTeX
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2020
Barykina, Natalia V.; Sotskov, Vladimir P.; Gruzdeva, Anna M.; Wu, You Kure; Portugues, Ruben; Subach, Oksana M.; Chefanova, Elizaveta S.; Plusnin, Viktor V.; Ivashkina, Olga I.; Anokhin, Konstantin V.; Vlaskina, Anna V.; Korzhenevskiy, Dmitry A.; Nikolaeva, Alena Y.; Boyko, Konstantin M.; Rakitina, Tatiana V.; Varizhuk, Anna M.; Pozmogova, Galina E.; Subach, Fedor V.: FGCaMP7, an Improved Version of Fungi-Based Ratiometric Calcium Indicator for In Vivo Visualization of Neuronal Activity. International Journal of Molecular Sciences 21 (8), 2020, 3012 more…BibTeX
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Claudi, Federico; Petrucco, Luigi; Tyson, Adam; Branco, Tiago; Margrie, Troy; Portugues, Ruben: BrainGlobe Atlas API: a common interface for neuroanatomical atlases. Journal of Open Source Software 5 (54), 2020, 2668 more…BibTeX
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Markov, Daniil A.; Petrucco, Luigi; Kist, Andreas M.; Portugues, Ruben: A cerebellar internal model calibrates a feedback controller involved in sensorimotor control. bioRxiv, 2020 more…BibTeX
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Siju, K.P.; Štih, Vilim; Aimon, Sophie; Gjorgjieva, Julijana; Portugues, Ruben; Grunwald Kadow, Ilona C.: Valence and State-Dependent Population Coding in Dopaminergic Neurons in the Fly Mushroom Body. Current Biology 30 (11), 2020, 2104-2115.e4 more…BibTeX
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Yildizoglu, Tugce; Riegler, Clemens; Fitzgerald, James E.; Portugues, Ruben: A Neural Representation of Naturalistic Motion-Guided Behavior in the Zebrafish Brain. Current Biology 30 (12), 2020, 2321-2333.e6 more…BibTeX
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