Mechanistic Understanding of Neural Function by In Vivo Investigations of Activity-Dependent Plasticity
Abstract
The PI has assembled an experimental system to combine intracellular and extracellular electrophysiology, optogenetics and 2-photonimaging in awake behaving mice. This enables the investigation of how these computational operate within the complex architecture of the mammalian brain. The research addresses the interactions between neural activity, perception and learning, focusing particularly on the interplay between activity-dependent synaptic plasticity and dynamic neural representations. Various techniques are combined (in vivo electrophysiology, viral targeting, optogenetic manipulation and imaging, computational modeling and behavioral analysis) toaddress the following questions: how are features of the outside world represented in the brain and how are they influenced by internal states? How do representations change over time and across different brain structures and what functions do their transformations provide? How is information that is necessary for a particular behavior stored, read out, and integrated with newly acquired information? The research is characterizing the precise functional form of the learning rule between specific cell types in the awake, behaving mouse, and then study its influence over neural activity and connectivity as a function of global brain state.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Sep 23, 2016
- Source ID
- N000141612695
Entities
People
- S. Cassenaer
Organizations
- California Institute of Technology
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy