Monitor Neural Activity

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT How the brain generates the correct number of neurons and how these neurons determine the size of their arbors to innervate the receptor field is a critical question in neurobiology. The Drosophila visual system is hard wired and iteratively organized into columns, providing an excellent model to answer these questions. Drosophila medulla multicolumnar neurons exhibit 5 to 750 neurons per cell type; each neuron class possesses a distinct morphology and projects its arbors across multiple columns in the optic lobe.

Project Summary There is currently an unmet need for accurate model systems of the human brain to study its cellular and molecular features. The cerebral cortex regulates our cognitive capacity, yet the cellular diversity, circuit formation, and function that establish this potential, largely remains a mystery. The cortex is expanded in humans compared to other species; it contains more cellular diversity and abundance, making model organisms limited for translational studies.

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.