NEURAL MECHANISMS OF DIRECTIONAL ORIENTATION

定向的神经机制

• 批准号: 6651672
• 负责人: JEFFREY Steven TAUBE
• 金额: $ 12.64万
• 依托单位: DARTMOUTH COLLEGE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 1995
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1995-09-15 至 2005-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6651672
• 关键词: NMDA receptors; behavior test; behavioral /social science research tag; brain electrical activity; brain mapping; cues; electrostimulus; experimental brain lesion; gamma aminobutyrate; head movements; laboratory rat; neural information processing; orientation; single cell analysis; space perception

DESCRIPTION (adapted from applicant's abstract): With a second five years of K02 support, the PI wishes to continue his career with an emphasis on research. His areas of interest focus on the neurobiological mechanisms underlying spatial cognition and related forms of learning. In addition to relief from normal teaching, the award will also provide the PI the opportunity to learn several new techniques related to the proposed studies and his future plans. Experiments are proposed which will attempt to elucidate how spatial information is processed in the mammalian brain, with emphasis on the role of head direction (HD) cells previously identified and described by the PI. It is the PI's goal to determine how sensory information is transformed into a Ahigh level cognitive signal@ representing space. In Aims 1 and 2, the PI will examine how the HD cell signal is generated. In Aims 3 and 4, the role of vestibular inputs on HD firing will be examined. Aim 5 will explore the role of GABAergic interneurons in defining the HD cells= firing patterns. Aim 6 examines the types of cues HD cells used to maintain a stable tuning curve when the animal enters a novel environment, while Aim 7 focuses on the link between the HD cell and space-directed behaviors. Lastly, Aim 8 examines how HD cells respond to planes other than Earth horizontal. The results of these experiments will have implications for understanding how the brain processes spatial information, and since spatial processing deficits are characteristic of age-related cognitive impairments, to understand the nature of these impairments in humans.

描述（改编自申请人摘要）：第二个五年