NEURONEX: The fabric of the primate neocortex and the origin of mental representations. From transcriptomics to single neurons and neuronal networks.

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This award provides support for the US component of a NeuroNex Network consisting of 15 research teams in the US, Canada, and Germany. This consortium will address the molecular, cellular, and circuit mechanisms underlying working memory in primates. This is fundamental to abstract thought and cognitive ability. The central hypothesis to be tested is that there is an evolutionarily driven expansion of visual connectivity in different regions of the brain and along the visual processing pathway, and that this connectivity principal will be more pronounced in macaques than marmosets. The research targets three regions, reflecting three levels of the visual pathway. A long-lasting, far-reaching impact involves leveraging work from this NeuroNex Network with other BRAIN Initiative projects to enable acquisition and sharing of the new knowledge. Future applications, even beyond the brain, of the knowledge and tools developed here will give rise to data that address fundamental and novel principles of complex self-organizing systems. The NeuroNex Network also involves training the next generation, including through inter-laboratory and fellow exchanges. This NeuroNex Network integrates teams of four Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRGs). The approach involves characterizing neurons in each of three regions of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) and processing stage using genotyping and transcriptomics, and then examining linkages to basic electrophysiological properties. These areas also represent three stages of information processing along the primate cortical pathways as well as in the evolution of cortical layers. It is hypothesized that the functional, anatomical and molecular dependencies of neurons vary across these regions, and that differences are prominent in macaques, and more subtle in marmosets. The data are to be used to drive the development of computational models. The first IRG takes an in vivo physiology approach using laminar recordings. The second IRG addresses in vitro electrophysiology and neuronal circuitry. The third IRG is a molecular characterization using transcriptomics and immuno electron microscopy. The fourth IRG takes a neuroinformatics approach that combines these data to inform computational models of cortical architectures that mimic the single neurons and population dynamics measured in the first IRG. This IRG will also create a centralized resource to assess data across levels and IRGs. This project is co-funded by Emerging Frontiers in the Directorate for Biological Sciences and the Cyberinfrastructure for Emerging Science and Engineering Research (CESER) program within the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.