NEURAL CIRCUITS OF THE INFERIOR PARIETAL LOBULE

这个子项目是许多研究子项目中利用 资源由NIH/NCRR资助的中心拨款提供。子项目和 调查员(PI)可能从NIH的另一个来源获得了主要资金， 并因此可以在其他清晰的条目中表示。列出的机构是 该中心不一定是调查人员的机构。 这一建议的目的是从行为猴顶下小叶的功能回路组织的角度直接检验Mitchison和Cricks的假说。为了在活体内研究顶下小叶的功能回路组织，我们在过去三年里一直在完善对行为正常的猴子的遗传转化神经元进行双光子成像的能力。这些神经元被病毒转染，以表达电压或钙的荧光传感器。因此，可以在显微分辨率下对神经元进行成像，同时显示其神经元的活动。进行这些实验已经证明了行为猴准备的许多优点。我们观察了距离软膜表面已知深度的神经元，观察了它们在切平面上彼此之间的精确空间关系，并在行为任务中测量了它们的调谐。事实上，我们已经对15个神经元进行了持续3小时的稳定连续双光子显微镜记录。这些进展支持在行为过程中检查联合皮质中特定的投射功能回路。我们的工作假设是：顶下小叶被组织成局部模块，其中包含具有相同投射模式和相同功能的神经元。我们将使用这些资金对在生物实验中收集的大型成像数据集进行计算分析。

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The goal of this proposal is to directly examine Mitchison and Cricks hypothesis in terms of the functional circuit organization of the inferior parietal lobule in behaving monkey. To study the functional circuit organization of inferior parietal lobule in vivo, we have spent the last three years perfecting the ability to perform two-photon imaging of genetically transformed neurons in the behaving monkey. These neurons are virally transfected to express a fluorescent sensor for voltage or calcium. Thus a neuron can be imaged at microscopic resolution along with its neuronal activity. Performing these experiments has demonstrated many advantages for the behaving monkey preparation. We have observed neurons a known depth from the pial surface, observed their precise spatial relationships to each other in the tangential plane, and measured their tuning during a behavioral task. Indeed, we have made stable continuous two-photon microscopic recordings from 15 neurons for 3 hours. These advances support examining specific projective functional circuits in association cortex during behavior. Our working hypothesis is: the inferior parietal lobule is organized into local modules containing neurons with the same projection patterns and the same functions. We will be using these funds to computationally analyze the large imaging data sets collected in the biological experiments.