Mechanisms underlying brain dynamics: contributions and control by inhibitory cells and networks

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

It has been many decades since electrical activities were first measured from the brain. It is clear that there are distinct electrical signatures that can be correlated with normal and pathological states. However, it is far from clear how these brain signatures are generated. An understanding of how such activities are produced is needed not only to help us understand brain functioning, but also to help us diagnose and ultimately control and treat neurological diseases. My research program aims to obtain a cellular-based mechanistic understanding of population activities that produce electrical signatures in the brain. We do this by developing and analyzing mathematical models of neurons and networks. However, this is a challenge because network size and architecture, along with connectivity and cellular characteristics all need to be considered. We tackle this challenge by focusing on a brain structure important for learning and memory, the hippocampus, and on which much experimental data is available. We aim to develop models based on well-defined population activities that have been recorded at both the cellular and population levels in hippocampus. In this way there can be a bidirectional relationship between model and experiment as mechanisms and hypotheses are developed with our models and analyses to understand brain activities. In particular, we focus on specific inhibitory cell types as they have been shown not only to be diverse in a functionally relevant fashion, but also to be the controllers of several population activities. Thus, the overall objective of this proposal is to understand the contribution of hippocampal inhibitory cells by building and examining neuronal and network models with particular connections and with particular cellular properties in well-defined experimental contexts.