Recombinant Immunolabels for Nanoprecise Brain Mapping Across Scales Understanding brain function and dysfunction requires an understanding of the circuitry of the brain from molecules to cells to circuits. While no single technique can achieve this, a strategic combination of techniques applied across scales can provide information that when integrated can lead to a more complete picture.
Understanding the function of the nervous system requires a sophisticated understanding of its main output, behavior. Although our ability to record from and to manipulate neurons and neural circuits has accelerated at a spectacular pace over the last decade, progress has lagged in coupling the interrogation of the nervous system to similarly high-resolution measures of behavior.
Project Summary: Hippocampal sharp-wave ripples are 150-250 Hz oscillations during slow-wave sleep or immobility during which large populations of hippocampal neurons sequentially replay activity patterns that occurred during exploration of the environment. Disruption of ripples during wakefulness disrupts working memory.
Our research goal is to determine the factors that instruct the development of visual responses in the mammalian retina. In particular, we are studying the developmental period when the retina transitions from generating retinal waves to mediating visual responses by forming functional circuits. Utilizing a high-speed volumetric two-photon microscope will enable the first description of spontaneous firing patterns across identified microcircuits, such as those that mediate direction selectivity.
PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT Epilepsy is an often debilitating neurological condition affecting 3 million Americans and more than 50 million people across the globe. Focal epileptic seizures start in specific brain regions due to abnormal patterns of activity in very specific subpopulations of neurons.
PROJECT SUMMARY The execution of learned sequential motor behaviors, like those involved in playing a well learned tune on the piano, are thought to be supported by precise sequences of neuronal activity in the brain. However, probing the ties between sequential neuronal activity, neuronal connectivity and behavior is challenging without methods for simultaneously observing and controlling neuronal activity with spatial and temporal precision.
This project will transfer a computational modeling technology, "StimVision", from the McIntyre Lab at Case Western Reserve University to the deep brain stimulation (DBS) group at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). DBS is currently used to treat severe obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) through high-frequency electrical stimulation of the ventral internal capsule/ventral striatum (VC/VS). VC/VS is a complex brain region containing white matter tracts projecting to multiple frontal cortical regions.
Project Summary/Abstract The hippocampus is one of a select few brain regions that retain the ability to generate neurons in adulthood. Research in human patients and animal models suggests that increases and decreases in neurogenesis alter memory function and contribute to the etiology and treatment of emotional disorders. Despite almost 15 years of research linking adult neurogenesis to memory and emotional regulation, almost nothing is known about the circuit and coding mechanisms through which adult neurogenesis influences these processes.
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has become one of the leading research tools to study brain function and is playing a pivotal role in several large-scale brain mapping projects worldwide. Despite ongoing technical advancements in MRI which have greatly increased its availability and helped improve the resolution for functional brain mapping, we still have very limited understanding of what fMRI signals really represent.
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has become one of the leading research tools to study brain function and is playing a pivotal role in several large-scale brain mapping projects worldwide. Despite ongoing technical advancements in MRI which have greatly increased its availability and helped improve the resolution for functional brain mapping, we still have very limited understanding of what fMRI signals really represent.
