Exploring Interactions between the Sleep Homeostatic Process and Cortical Neuronal Dynamics

我的博士项目涉及使用电生理记录，药理学和数学建模的组合来探索睡眠稳态过程（在清醒期间增加，在睡眠期间减少）和小鼠皮层神经元活动之间的相互作用。该项目的主要目的是进一步了解这一过程的确切起源，这反映了睡眠在大脑中的最终功能。具体来说，我使用的经典模型的睡眠稳态过程，这可以在慢波（0.5-4 Hz）活动水平的本地记录的场电位，探索其变化在整个补丁的皮层，并确定在何种程度上这可以占局部变化在最近的神经元活动的适应。我进一步探讨如何理论上动机的神经元动态状态的措施，有关的临界和神经元雪崩，在整个睡眠-觉醒周期和睡眠稳态过程的函数变化。最后，我调查，在小鼠中，5-HT 2A受体，这引起有力的改变觉醒的质量，对睡眠的发生和睡眠压力的建立和消散的激动剂的影响。该项目涉及BBSRC优先领域数据驱动生物学。

My DPhil project involves the use of a combination of electrophysiological recording, pharmacology and mathematical modelling to explore interactions between the sleep homeostatic process (that which increases during wake and decreases during sleep) and activity in cortical neurones in mice. The main purpose of the project is to gain additional insight into the precise origins of this process, which reflects the ultimate functions of sleep in the brain. Specifically, I use adaptations of classic models of the sleep homeostatic process, which can be measured in the slow wave (0.5-4 Hz) activity levels of locally recorded field potentials, to explore its variability across a patch of cortex and determine to what extent this can be accounted for by local variation in recent neuronal activity. I further explore how theoretically motivated measures of neuronal dynamic state, related to criticality and neuronal avalanches, vary across the sleep-wake cycle and as a function of the sleep homeostatic process. Finally, I investigate, in mice, the effects of agonists of the 5-HT2A receptor, which induce potent alterations to the quality of wakefulness, on the occurrence of sleep and on the build-up and dissipation of sleep pressure. The project addresses the BBSRC priority area data driven biology.