Meet Carlos Otero, one of our Ph.D. students driving innovation at the College of Engineering and Computing. His fascination with the brain began in elementary school, spending time in his grandmother Manena’s classroom, where she worked as a special needs teacher’s assistant. Observing students with autism, he learned that everyone thinks and reacts differently. This early experience sparked a lifelong curiosity about the brain—a puzzle he has always wanted to piece together.
Otero’s research focuses on understanding how the brain creates and stores memories, with a focus on the hippocampus, a part of the brain critical for memory. Even though the hippocampus has been widely studied, scientists still don’t fully understand which circuits are involved in forming and keeping memories, or how those circuits change in neurological disorders.
To tackle these questions, Otero works in the Neuronal Mass Dynamics Lab at FIU under Dr. Jorge Riera, in collaboration with the Cognitive Neurophysiology Lab at the University of Western Ontario, led by Dr. Julio Martinez-Trujillo. Together, they record brain activity from primates and use it to build one of the first computer models of the primate hippocampus that functions like the real thing. This model helps them explore how different brain cells communicate, how they connect, and how memory circuits may be altered by disease.
The impact of Otero’s work goes beyond understanding memory. By filling critical gaps in neuroscience, his research could improve how brain disorders are studied, guide new approaches to personalized care, and inspire therapies and technologies modeled after the brain. Through this work, Otero hopes to unlock new insights into one of science’s most complex puzzles—the human brain.
Learn more about Carlos Otero's work on LinkedIn.