As neuroscience seeks to understand larger, more complicated systems and behaviors, we will require neural recording techniques that can monitor the activity of neurons across the whole brain. The unparalleled data-storage capabilities of DNA, combined with fast, genetically encodable DNA polymerase-based sensors, would allow for "ticker tape"-like recordings of neurons...
Large projection neurons of the cerebellar nuclei (CbN cells), whose activity generates movement, are inhibited by Purkinje cells and excited by mossy fibers. The high convergence, firing rates, and strength of Purkinje inputs predict powerful suppression of CbN cell spiking, raising the question of what activity patterns favor excitation over...
Habits are actions taken without conscious consideration of a goal. The distinction between habits and conscious, goal-directed actions has been made for millennia. Only comparatively recently, however, have results from biological psychiatry and neuroscience begun to shed light on the existence of separable neural circuits that underlie our intuitive perception...
Saccharomyces cerevisiae contains several epigenetic elements known as yeast prions. Our laboratory discovered the yeast prion [SWI+], whose protein determinant is Swi1, a subunit of the SWI/SNF chromatin-remodeling complex. Formation of [SWI+] results in abolishment of multicellular features and a partial loss-of-function phenotype of non-glucose carbon source usage. Our laboratory...
The mouse visual system has recently been shown to possess many of the properties observed in the visual systems of the classically studied carnivores and primates. An ever-expanding genetic toolkit has given researchers who study vision in mice many advantages unavailable in other species.
In this thesis I study the...
Worldwide, youth living with perinatally-acquired human immunodeficiency virus (PHIV) are at increased risk for cognitive dysfunction and developmental delay. Effects of the virus, chronic inflammation, and combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) during critical periods of brain development may disrupt normal cognitive development. Neuroimaging studies using structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) allow...
The form and function of neural circuits are shaped by experience during critical periods of development. Recently, our lab discovered an important outcome of critical period plasticity in the visual system, namely, binocular matching of orientation preference, whereby initially randomly aligned orientation preferences become matched in individual cells. Following this...
The over-a-decade quantitative study of the flexion synergy has provided concrete evidence that the stereotypical movement coupling of shoulder abduction with elbow flexion and wrist/finger flexion (i.e. flexion synergy) significantly affects the ability to perform functional upper extremity movements that are essential for activities of daily living (e.g. reach-to-grasp an...
In Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), spinal motoneurons degenerate in the order of large motoneurons that innervate fast and fatigable muscle fibers to small motoneurons that innervate slow muscle fibers (Pun et al. 2006). This order of degeneration is peculiar in that it is in direct opposition to the normal order...
Our capacity to share ideas through content is the paramount feature of the human brain. All of our species’ advanced communication and coordination fundamentally relies on our ability to “think alike,” yet the parallels between our brains are grossly understudied, especially regarding engagement with dynamic audiovisual stimuli. Therefore, we present...