Project Summary: Project 2 - Linking Fast Timescale Neuron-Astrocyte Communication to Neural Circuit Function and Behavior A fundamental yet unresolved question in neuroscience is how non-neuronal cells communicate with the surrounding neurons, influence their function, and potentially affect animal behavior. Astrocytes are in a unique position to modulate neural circuit function.
SUMMARY / ABSTRACT – Project 1. Multi-feature, Multi-scale Atlas Project 1 of the Berghia Brain Project is to create a multi-scale, multi-feature atlas of the Berghia brain and peripheral neural plexus. Berghia has a brain that is both physically small enough to be serially sectioned and reconstructed from electron micrographs and also has few enough neurons that they can be individually characterized and catalogued.
Program abstract: This proposal aims to identify the neural circuit mechanisms that control periarterial cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pumping and glymphatic clearance of fluid and solutes. We have developed a collaboration to quantify CSF transport dynamics in both humans and mice across several scales, spanning molecular transport, neuronal and glial activity, vascular and brain-wide fluid dynamics. We propose that coordinated neural activity during sleep drives global and local changes in blood volume, which in turn are the primary drivers of CSF transport.
The heart and the mind: an integrative approach to brain-body interactions in the zebrafish Our current U19 has focused primarily on Exteroception, which can be defined as the accumulated sensory experience originating from events in the outside world. However, all neural computation takes place in the context of the body, which is subject to the dynamics of hunger, fatigue, motivation and diurnal cycles.
Reading involves complex transformations of word forms, with visual input mapped to lexical, semantic and phonological systems in less than a second. While much has been learned about the neuroanatomy of reading from functional imaging and lesion studies, the dynamic and interactive properties of this system remain largely unknown.
A key problem in neuroscience is to uncover fundamental principles and algorithms that allow neuronal networks to perform the complex calculations that underlie normal behavior effectively and efficiently.
Project Summary/Abstract The Research Plan describes a series of experiments that will examine how spatial information is processed in the mammalian brain. Previous studies have identified a population of cells that are tuned to a subject’s directional heading These so-called head direction cells are thought to underlie one’s sense of direction. The neural basis for this computation is believed to reside in an attractor network at subcortical levels.
Project Summary Animal brains integrate information to make crucial developmental and behavioral decisions. The brain adapts to life experiences by anatomical, functional, and molecular changes, but understanding the strategic value of these changes requires a comprehensive model that interconnects neural circuits and behavioral dynamics. To develop such models, it is useful to start with animals where entire brain circuits can be interrogated with full molecular, synaptic, and cellular resolution across development.
PROJECT SUMMARY Cortical circuits generate dynamic patterns of activity. One of the great challenges of modern neuroscience is to determine the circuit architectures that generate such dynamics patterns, and understand their genesis and functional significance. Most research on brain dynamics focused on stable patterns of activity showing continuous transitions (e.g., oscillations). However, in recent years there has been an increased interest on transient dynamics, including the ones resulting from the sequential switching between metastable states.
Project Summary The goal of this proposal is to identify fundamental sensorimotor circuits associated with goal-oriented gripping movement by using high-dimensional biological, analytical and robotics technologies. To pursue this, we will study an animal that is extraordinary in many ways, the octopus. Our interest in this unique invertebrate is based on its well documented complex behavior repertoire that have shown to resemble those of vertebrates. Each of the eight arms contains an axial nerve which functions like the vertebrate’s spinal cord.
