Vertebrate brains evolved to facilitate a diverse array of behaviors and internal cognitive processes. Theories of neural function have proposed that neural computation is organized within populations or ensembles of neurons. Here, we identify ensembles of neurons in the striatum, the main input nucleus of the basal ganglia, in which...
Human olfactory function is important for a myriad of behaviors, including food seeking, social cognition, memory, emotional regulation, and detecting environmental threats. In animal models, particularly dense olfactory inputs have been shown to target orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), a region involved in multimodal sensory integration, reward coding, and flexibly guiding our...
The retina detects light, processes the visual signal, and sends a complex set of parallel information channels to the brain via a functionally diverse set of retinal ganglion cells types. This manuscript examines these retinal ganglion cell types, the visual features they encode, and the computational mechanisms leading to their...
Involuntary motor activities such as spasms arise from hyperreflexia in about 70% of individuals with spinal cord injuries (SCI). Despite this prevalence and the negative impact on health and safety, it is unclear what determines the severity of the spasms that develop. This study investigated the impact of injury severity...
Our sense of smell, or olfaction, is one of our most evolutionarily ancient senses. In vertebrates, olfaction plays a crucial role in many functions, such as detecting and evaluating food, avoiding predators, regulating appetite, spatial navigation, and selecting mating partners. In addition, the olfactory system is highly dynamic and exhibits...
Findings in both humans and animal models have associated the hippocampal theta oscillation with hippocampal memory function. In animal models, previous research supports that the theta oscillation contributes to memory via phase-dependent changes in hippocampal network connectivity, wherein memory encoding versus retrieval are optimized at different phases of the theta...
Aging is the greatest known risk factor for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD); however, the molecular mechanisms underlying aging and how it can initiate and or exacerbate AD, is still unknown. Epigenetic regulation has been widely accepted to play an essential role in aging or AD-related processes; however, whether dysregulations of histone...
Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common aggressive primary malignant brain tumorin adults with a median age of onset of 65 years of age. Although advanced age is often associated with worse GBM patient survival, the predominant source(s) of maladaptive aging
effects remains to be established. Here we studied intra-tumoral and...
Each neuron in the primary motor cortex (M1) is like a musician in an orchestra, contributing to a larger harmony under the constraint of a “neural manifold”—a geometric score describing the correlated signals produced by the neural musicians that drive movement. Despite the widespread recognition of the importance of M1...
Chronic stress is a significant risk factor for the development of numerous psychiatric disorders, including major depressive disorder (MDD). Individuals with MDD exhibit impairments in reward processing and decreased motivation to engage in previously-rewarding activities. Importantly, there is a large sex disparity in MDD diagnosis, such that it affects nearly...