Objectif
Information representation and processing in the nervous system relies on spatiotemporal activity patterns carried across large populations of neurons. Our ability to perturb or even control these activity patterns thus underlies both basic-science experim ental questions and our ability to restore lost function following neurological damage. This task is typically addressed using electrodes and electrode arrays but can also be approached using optical stimualtion of neurons, for example, by photolyzing cage d glutamate ('uncaging') . We will develop a system that allows flexible, selective optical stimulation of thousands of neurons. Our system uses a rapid UV image projection system to control the dynamic distribution of glutamate release and will be appli ed in a series of in vitro experiments in retinas and brain slice preparations where we will use electrode arrays to monitor the resultng population activity. Using tools from engineering, we will characterize the input-output relationships in our system a nd use them to provide methodical strategy for activating and blocking the activity of neurons in feed-forward and recurrent network architectures. We will also use our system to emulate in retinal ganglion cells the same activity patterns recorded during normal visual input, a basic step towards a retina neuroprosthetic interface based on direct optical stimulation.'
Champ scientifique
Appel à propositions
FP6-2002-MOBILITY-12
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