Motor Pattern Selection From a Multifunctional Network

描述：（摘自申请人摘要）神经科学研究的一个目标是在细胞水平上理解行为的神经元基础。这一目标隐含着理解中枢神经系统如何在精神分裂症和帕金森病等疾病中出现故障的愿望。这些目标需要理解神经网络是如何组织的，以及如何影响它们产生不同的行为。实现这一目标的一种方法是了解不同的感觉通路如何改变神经网络活动以产生不同的行为。甲壳类动物口胃神经系统（STNS）是一个典型的神经系统，其网络活动的研究已有三十多年的历史。研究这个系统的研究人员在神经科学中获得了几乎独一无二的地位，他们知道一个离散的神经元网络如何在详细的细胞水平上产生潜在行为的活动模式。对STNS的深入理解使该模型系统成为研究与单一行为相关的不同感觉通路所携带的信息如何在神经系统内被处理和整合以产生不同的神经输出的主要候选者。因此，下面概述的建议侧重于确定不同感觉通路的激活如何调节岩蟹（Cancer borealis）口胃神经节（STG）的输出。将采用跨学科的方法，包括细胞内和细胞外记录和神经解剖学技术。指导这一建议的假设是，来自多功能神经网络的运动模式选择来自不同的感觉通路，它们对(a)调节性投射神经元和(b) STG网络神经元的重叠子集具有不同的作用，从而引起不同的运动模式。

DESCRIPTION:(from applicant's abstract) An objective of neuroscience research is to understand the neuronal basis of behavior at the cellular level. Implicit in this goal is the desire to understand how the CNS malfunctions in disorders such as schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease. These goals require an understanding of how neural networks are organized and how they can be influenced to produce different behaviors. One approach to this end is to understand how distinct sensory pathways modify neural network activity to produce different behaviors. The crustacean stomatogastric nervous system (STNS) is a model system whose network activity has been studied for over thirty years. Researchers studying this system have acquired the nearly unique position in neuroscience of knowing how a discrete network of neurons generates the activity patterns underlying behavior at the detailed cellular level. This deep level of understanding of the STNS makes this model system a prime candidate for studying how information carried by different sensory pathways relevant to a single behavior is processed and integrated within the nervous system to yield distinct neural outputs. Therefore, the proposal outlined below focuses on determining how activation of distinct sensory pathways modulates the output of the stomatogastric ganglion (STG) of the rock crab, Cancer borealis. An interdisciplinary approach will be used, including intra- and extracellular recordings and neuroanatomical techniques. The hypothesis guiding this proposal is that motor pattern selection from a multifunctional neural network results from different sensory pathways evoking different motor patterns as a consequence of their having distinct actions on overlapping subsets of (a) modulatory projection neurons and (b) STG network neurons.