Leifer develops closed-loop optical instrumentation that simultaneously records brain-wide calcium activity and delivers single-neuron optogenetic perturbations in freely moving C. elegans, building functional atlases of signal propagation and studying how whole-brain neural dynamics generate behavior. His group's whole-brain, cellular-resolution imaging in unrestrained animals is a benchmark advanced-microscopy approach for linking neural dynamics to behavior.

Schnitzer's lab invents miniaturized and fiber-based two-photon microscopes and voltage/calcium imaging methods that allow single-cell-resolution recording of neural activity in freely behaving animals, including recent wide-field fluorescence-lifetime voltage imaging developed with the Kasevich group for high-throughput readout of neuronal spiking.