EAGER: Magnetic Field Effects on Head Direction and Subicular Place Cell Responses

最近发现啮齿动物具有发达的磁罗盘感觉，这激发了人们对哺乳动物负责探测和处理磁性信息的神经机制的兴趣。这项拟议的研究将使用自由移动的Long-Evans大鼠大脑中单个神经元的电生理记录来表征对地球强度磁场的反应。为了最大限度地检测到这些反应的可能性，当老鼠第一次被引入到新的环境中并被剥夺了交替的方向线索时，将进行初始记录。这项研究的目标之一是识别接受磁输入的特定类别的空间神经元，例如头部方向神经元。第二个目标是确定负责探测地球的主要机制中的哪一个？候鸟和其他动物中的S场在老鼠身上发挥作用。一种机制涉及矿物磁铁矿的微小磁性敏感颗粒，第二种机制是一种特殊的感光器，在这种感光器中，对光的反应受到磁场的影响。这种基于光感受器的探测器在小鼠和大鼠身上有初步证据，被认为涉及一个量子过程，可能有助于量子计算等新技术的发展。此外，来自任何一种机制的输入都可能在哺乳动物的空间知觉中发挥基础的、以前未被认识到的作用。这种跨学科研究的更广泛影响将：(1)延伸到生物物理学、工程学、认知心理学和感觉生态学等不同的领域；(2)有助于更好地了解生物医学研究中使用的动物模型(如用于研究阿尔茨海默病、S病和其他形式的痴呆症的小鼠水迷宫试验)；以及(3)为不同的学生群体和博士后研究员提供跨学科的培训。

The recent discovery that rodents have a well-developed magnetic compass sense has stimulated interest in the neural mechanism responsible for detecting and processing magnetic information in mammals. The proposed research will use electrophysiological recording from individual neurons in the brains of free-moving Long-Evans rats to characterize responses to an earth-strength magnetic field. To maximize the likelihood of detecting these responses, initial recordings will be carried out when rats are first introduced to novel surroundings and deprived of alternate directional cues. One goal of this research is to identify specific classes of spatial neurons that receive magnetic input, for example, head direction cells. A second goal is to determine which, if either, of the primary mechanisms responsible for detecting the earth?s field in migratory birds and other animals is functioning in rats. One mechanism involves small, magnetically sensitive particles of the mineral magnetite and the second a specialized photoreceptor in which the response to light is influenced by the magnetic field. The photoreceptor-based detector, for which there is preliminary evidence in mice and rats, is thought to involve a quantum process that could contribute to the development of new technologies such as quantum computing. Furthermore, input from either mechanism could play a fundamental, and previously unrecognized, role in mammalian spatial perception. The broader impact of this interdisciplinary research will: (1) extend to fields as diverse as biophysics, engineering, cognitive psychology, and sensory ecology, (2) contribute to a better understanding of animal models used in biomedical research (e.g., mouse water maze assays used to study Alzheimer?s disease and other forms of dementia), and (3) provide interdisciplinary training for diverse student populations and postdoctoral fellows.