Sensory processing during sleep

感觉系统是生物体与其环境之间的界面，传递相关信息以做出不适当的行为输出，例如寻找食物、配偶或躲避危险。因此，对环境中存在的线索保持警觉对生存至关重要，即使在睡眠期间也是一种普遍的需求。为了受益于睡眠的催眠特性，动物会过渡到一种无意识状态，其特征是与世界的感觉明显断开。这使他们不仅容易受到伤害，而且对可能直接影响其健康的线索做出反应的能力也较低。动物是如何平衡睡眠需求与其他竞争性行为驱动力的？一种解决办法是保持部分清醒，有些动物通过一次只睡一个大脑半球来达到这一目的。其他人，包括人类，甚至果蝇，在接收到显著信息后可以迅速醒来，这意味着一些感觉神经元可能充当清醒的“哨兵”。使用果蝇嗅觉系统作为感觉唤醒模型，我将确定哪些嗅觉通路在清醒中具有特权，以及所涉及的神经元是否表现出独特的生理特性或与唤醒中心有差异连接。我打算研究唤醒促进通路的可塑性，并确定是否可以将与先天性相对的习得性整合到这个回路中。最后，我将讨论是否唤醒系统已经在密切相关的yetecologically离散果蝇物种的发展。苍蝇的化学感受系统进化迅速，睡眠期间的效价编码是否在物种边界之间得到了适当的翻译，还有待观察：不同的物种是否会被与它们的生物学相关的线索唤醒？这项工作有望深入探索感觉神经科学的一个未知领域，并为现象提供机械解释，使动物能够从睡眠中受益，同时减轻它带来的挑战。

Sensory systems act as an interface between an organism and its environment, communicating relevant information to instructappropriate behavioural outputs, such as locating food, a mate or evading danger. Remaining alert to cues present in theenvironment is therefore paramount to survival and is a need that prevails even during sleep. To benefit from the restorativeproperties of sleep, animals transition into an unconscious state which is characterised by a marked sensory disconnection from theworld. This leaves them not only vulnerable but less able to respond to cues which may have a direct impact on their fitness. How doanimals balance the need to sleep with other competing behavioural drives? One solution is to remain partially awake, which someanimals achieve by sleeping one brain hemisphere at a time. Others, including humans and even fruit flies can rapidly wake up uponreceiving salient information, implying that some sensory neurons may act as awake "sentinels".Using the fruit fly olfactory system as a sensory-arousal model, I will determine which olfactory pathways have a privileged role inwaking and whether the neurons involved exhibit distinctive physiological properties or differentially connect to arousal centres.Secondly, I intend to investigate the plasticity of wake promoting pathways and ascertain whether learned as opposed to innatevalence can be integrated into this circuit. Lastly, I will address whether the arousal system has evolved in closely related yetecologically discrete fruit fly species. Fly chemosensory systems evolve rapidly and whether valence encoding during sleep has beentranslated appropriately across species borders, remains to be seen: Do different species wake to cues that are relevant to theirecology? This work promises to delve into an unexplored realm of sensory neuroscience and offer mechanistic explanations for aphenomenon that enables animals to benefit from sleep yet mitigate the challenges it poses.