PROJECT SUMMARY The goal of this project is to build an open-access recombinant antibody/affinity reagent resource for the neuroscience community called NABOR (Neuroscience AntiBody Open Resource).
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT This project aims to disseminate validated technologies and resources of the National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research (NCMIR) at UC San Diego to advance the completion of strategic goals of the BRAIN Initiative.
PROJECT SUMMARY Lack of standards for neurophysiology data and related metadata is the single greatest impediment to fully extracting return on investment from neurophysiology experiments. One of the greatest questions in science today is understanding how the brain works and gives rise to thoughts, memories, perception, and consciousness.
PROJECT SUMMARY A key problem in neuroscience is understanding how internal and external information are integrated in the brain to produce sensory experiences, cognition, and behavioral responses. This integration relies on flexible modulation of sensory processing in response to behavioral states like motivation, attention, and arousal. Neurons in the basal forebrain are key mediators of these behavioral states. At the same time, basal forebrain neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease is associated with deficits in both cognitive and sensory processing.
Project Summary High-throughput profiling of hundreds of thousands of cells in the central nervous system (CNS) is currently underway.
Project Summary This application describes a 5-year plan to investigate the neural dynamics that underpin distortion in memory, integrating computational modeling approaches with functional neuroimaging (fMRI) and non-invasive brain stimulation techniques (TMS). The candidate, a cognitive neuroscientist with a background in memory consolidation and experience in fMRI and TMS methods, seeks new training in computational modeling and model-based fMRI analysis under the mentorship of Dr. Anna Schapiro and Dr. Sharon Thompson-Schill.
PROJECT SUMMARY Significance: Neural circuit assembly requires activity-dependent refinement of circuit architecture (e.g. plasticity) to produce stereotyped behavior. Neurons are particularly susceptible to functional and structural plasticity during early developmental windows called critical periods. It is clear that failure to terminate critical period plasticity adversely affects mature circuit function in both animal models and humans (e.g. autism and epilepsy), yet the mechanisms that close critical periods are largely unknown.
Project Summary/Abstract Alternative splicing of pre-mRNAs is extensively employed by the nervous system to expand the transcriptomic manifold. Regulated in specific cellular contexts by multiple RNA-binding proteins (RBPs), this process is a major contributor to cellular identity that acts orthogonally to transcriptional regulation and has been implicated in many neurodevelopmental disorders.
Project Summary/Abstract: Glial cells collectively outnumber neurons in the vertebrate brain, but mechanistic understanding of their molecular subtypes and functions is lacking. Ependymal cells, ciliated epithelial cells that line the brain ventricles and produce laminar flow of cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) with their many motile cilia, are one such enigmatic group of glia. Relatively little is known about them, even compared to other glial cell types.
PROJECT SUMMARY Insufficient sleep, sleep disorders, and resulting problems with health and cognition are increasingly common in the United States. Many sleep disorders may be associated with abnormal sleep homeostasis: an innate regulatory process that balances sleep need, sleep intensity, and sleep amount as a function of prior time spent awake. Sleep homeostasis requires a feedback circuit to maintain the system within defined limits. However, the cellular components and protein signaling pathways of this feedback circuit remain incompletely defined.
