Periodic Reporting for period 1 - 3DPLASTICITY (Plasticity of dendritic computations during active network states)
Période du rapport: 2017-02-01 au 2019-01-31
Excitatory and inhibitory neurons form interconnected networks that extract sensorimotor features, combine them with internally generated evidence, and filter out irrelevant information, thereby creating perceptions and guiding behaviors. At the level of individual cells, information processing occurs at synaptic contacts all along their morphologically complex dendritic trees. It has been challenging to monitor this activity because most technologies lack the speed and agility to carry out stable in vivo recordings from small structures like dendrites. In addition, computations take place during various behavioral states in the context of the network. In vivo-like network activity patterns can dramatically alter how inputs are transformed into outputs, but how neurons actually process information in active networks in vivo is unclear. In addition, circuits are endowed with plasticity mechanisms that enable flexible adaptions to the environment. How plasticity impacts dendritic integration remains poorly defined. Resolving these issues will inform our mechanistic understanding of how single neurons process sensory information during naturalistic behaviors, enabling steps forward in our knowledge of normal brain function.
Basic research impacts society by deepening our understanding of how the brain works. Complete explanations of how circuits operate should aid society in the long-run by leading to novel therapies that prevent or treat disease. There is an urgent need since the European Brain Council indicates 38% of the EU’s population (164.8 out of ~500 million people) suffer from mental disorders, which apparently amounts to 798 billion tax-payer euros. Unfortunately, it is difficult to design better treatments for mental disorders because the gap in our knowledge of how genetic and environmental factors affect proteins, synapses, neurons, and networks remains large.
Findings from this research have been and will continue to be shared with scientists and the public. The broader impacts include: advancing neuroscience research and technology, developing collaborations and innovation, and sparking public interest in the brain. The potential socio-economic impacts include: advancing scientific knowledge via presenting data at international specialized scientific conferences and publications in respected international peer-reviewed open-access journals to give broad visibility to scientists and the public; facilitating international collaborations aimed at exploiting 3D imaging technologies; and making pertinent data-sets, metadata, and computer codes available for further exploitation via mining, verification, and reuse. The potential societal impacts include: improving our mechanistic understanding of normal brain function; development of new methods to test and treat brain disorder and disease; new ways of visualizing neuronal computations in 3D for use as educational tools; and inspiring the next generation of scientists through laboratory demonstrations and non-specialist presentations.