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Content archived on 2024-06-20

Combining genetic, physiological and viral tracing methods to understand the structure and function of neural circuits

Objective

One of the key features of the nervous system is that every brain area consists of a large variety of cell types defined either by their genetic profile, anatomy or physiology. It is widely believed and in some cases experimentally demonstrated that different cell types form well-defined microcircuits.

One of the major challenges of neuroscience is to understand the structure and function of these circuits. The mouse retina provides an exceptional opportunity to reveal the structure and function of microcircuits.

First, the input to the retina, the dynamically changing light pattern is well defined and can be experimentally manipulated. Second, it is possible to record the activity of most cell types during light stimulation from isolated retinas. Third, through standard genetic manipulations different cell types can be labelled with fluorescent markers allowing the identification of these cells in living retinas.

The team's goal is to elucidate the structure and function of genetically identified microcircuits in the mouse retina, where approximately 52 cell types are organized into a dozen neural circuits. The team combines different biological disciplines to reach this goal.

Transgenic technologies are used to label retinal cell types, viral tracing methods are used to "light up" the connections of the labelled cell classes and electrophysiology combined with two-photon microscopy is used to record the activity of labelled cells during stimulation of the retina with light patterns.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Topic(s)

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Call for proposal

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FP6-2005-MOBILITY-8
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Funding Scheme

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EXT - Marie Curie actions-Grants for Excellent Teams

Coordinator

NOVARTIS FORSCHUNGSSTIFTUNG, ZWEIGNIEDERLASSUNG FRIEDRICH MIESCHER INSTITUTE FOR BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH
EU contribution
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Total cost

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