The Functional Role of Experience in the Development of Visual Cortical Circuits

本研究项目的目标是揭示人类和动物大脑在发育过程中如何出现令人惊讶的复杂结构，以及它如何变得非常适合执行高度复杂的行为。PI将使用最新的多电极、成像和光生理学方法来测量从睁开眼睛到视觉系统完全成熟的视觉皮质中神经回路的功能发育。如果成功，这个项目将揭示输入的视觉刺激是如何与大脑中存储的先前视觉记忆相结合来解释视觉环境的。这项工作将阐明经验如何影响视觉皮质中回路的发展。这项研究的潜在科学影响极高，因为它可以通过使用视觉系统作为模型示例，阐明大脑如何适应环境来执行其功能。这项工作将对科学进步产生更广泛的影响，因为学生和博士后研究员将接受培训，将动物行为研究与先进的神经记录和刺激技术相结合。此外，进行录音和分析的计算机代码将在作者身上发布？网站，作者将提供教学教程，以便其他人可以在这里开发的方法的基础上继续发展。由此产生的数据将发表在作者身上吗？网站，以便其他科学家可以检查和扩展结果。最后，关于环境如何影响神经回路发展的见解可能会对设计更有效的教育工具和创造更具支持性的工作环境产生影响。

The goal of the present research project is to uncover how the astonishingly complex structure of human and animal brains emerges during development and how it becomes well-suited to perform highly sophisticated behaviors. The PIs will use the latest multi-electrode, imaging and opto-genetic methods of electrophysiology to measure the functional development of neural circuits in the visual cortex from eye opening until the full maturity of the visual system. If successful, this project will reveal how incoming visual stimuli are combined with previous visual memories stored in the brain to interpret the visual environment. This work will illuminate how experience influences the development of the circuitry in the visual cortex. The potential scientific impact of this research is extremely high because it can, through using the visual system as a model example, clarify of how the brain adapts to the environment to perform its function. This work will have a broader impact on the advancement of science, as students and postdoctoral fellows will be trained to integrate the study of behaving animals with advanced neural recording and stimulation technologies. Further, the computer code for performing recordings and analysis will be published on the authors? websites, and the authors will provide instructional tutorials so that others can build upon the methods developed here. The resulting data will be published on the authors? websites so other scientists can examine and extend the results. Finally, insights gained about how the environment influences the development of neural circuitry are likely to have implications that could reach as far as designing more effective educational tools and creating more supportive work environments.