PROJECT SUMMARY Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subcallosal cingulate (SCC) white matter is an emerging new treatment strategy for treatment resistant depression (TRD) with published studies demonstrating sustained long-term antidepressant effects in 40-60% of implanted patients.
Brain functions are executed by intricately coordinated networks of neurons, whose modes of operation are highly sensitive to a constellation of neuromodulators. More specifically, neuromodulators such as dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, and acetylcholine exert dramatic control over global brain processes such as arousal, attention, emotion, or cognitive perception.
Although neuroscience has provided a great deal of information about how neurons work, the fundamental question of how neurons function together in a network to produce cognition has been difficult to address. Our group has been at the forefront of developing methods that allow large scale monitoring of identified neurons, monitoring of voltage signals by optical means and elucidation of subcellular events in dendrites, all of which can now be done in awake behaving animals.
Project Summary Working memory, the ability to temporarily hold multiple pieces of information in mind for manipulation, is central to virtually all cognitive abilities. Recent technical advances have opened an unprecedented opportunity to comprehensively dissect the neural circuit mechanisms of this ability across multiple brain areas. The task to be studied is a common form of decision-making that is based on the gradual accumulation of sensory evidence and thus relies on working memory.
Understanding the mechanisms that the nervous system uses to control movement is critical for understanding brain and behavior, and one of the fundamental questions in neuroscience. The control of movement emerges from the activity of different motor control centers, that converge onto output systems, mostly located in the spinal cord. While the spinal circuits that underlie different aspects of motor control have been relatively well characterized, the way by which these circuits are coordinated by supraspinal motor control centers remains elusive.
Project Summary - A realistic multiscale circuit model of the larval zebrafish brain The working group of the BRAIN initiative (BRAIN 2025, a Scientific Vision) identified “the analysis of circuits of interacting neurons as being particularly rich in opportunity, with potential for revolutionary advances
Project Summary To survive, organisms must both accurately represent stimuli in the outside world, and use that representation to generate beneficial behavioral actions. Historically, these two processes – the mapping from stimuli to neural responses, and the mapping from neural activity to behavior – have largely been treated separately. Of the two, the former has received the most attention. Often referred to as the “neural coding problem,” its goal is to determine which features of neural activity carry information about external stimuli.
Overview - Abstract Brainstem function is necessary for life-sustaining functions such as breathing and for survival functions, such as foraging for food. Individual motor actions are activated by specific brainstem cranial motor nuclei. The specificity of individual motor actions reflects the participation of motor nuclei in circuits within closed loops between sensors and muscle actuators. However, these loops are also nested and connect to feedback and feedforward pathways, which underlie coordination between orofacial motor actions.
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The mammalian brain has a remarkable ability to store and retrieve information. Detailed memories can be formed after as little as one exposure, and those memories can be retained for decades. This ability is compromised following damage to structures located in the medial temporal lobe, including the hippocampus and the adjacent cortex.
PROJECT SUMMARY Cervical spinal cord injury results in the loss of arm and hand function, which significantly limits independence and results in costs over the person’s lifespan. A brain-computer interface (BCI) can be used to bypass the injured tissue to enable control of a robotic arm and to provide somatosensory feedback. Two primary limitations of current state-of-the-art BCIs for arm and hand control are: (1) the inability to control the forces exerted by the prosthetic hand and (2) the lack of somatosensory feedback from the hand.
