Objective 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.' Fields of science natural sciencesbiological sciencesneurobiologymedical and health sciencesclinical medicineophthalmologymedical and health sciencesmedical biotechnologyimplants Programme(s) FP6-MOBILITY - Human resources and Mobility in the specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration "Structuring the European Research Area" under the Sixth Framework Programme 2002-2006 Topic(s) MOBILITY-4.2 - Marie Curie International Reintegration Grants (IRG) Call for proposal FP6-2002-MOBILITY-12 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme IRG - Marie Curie actions-International re-integration grants Coordinator TECHNION - ISRAEL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY EU contribution No data Address Technion City HAIFA Israel See on map Links Website Opens in new window Total cost No data
