Sensory processing during sleep

感官系统充当有机体与其环境之间的接口，传递相关信息以指示适当的行为输出，如定位食物、配偶或躲避危险。因此，对环境中存在的线索保持警觉对生存至关重要，甚至在睡眠期间也是如此。为了从睡眠的恢复性中获益，动物转变为无意识状态，其特征是明显的感觉与世界的脱节。这不仅让他们变得脆弱，而且对可能对他们的健康产生直接影响的暗示做出反应的能力也更弱。动物如何在睡眠需求和其他相互竞争的行为驱动之间取得平衡？一种解决方案是保持部分清醒，一些动物通过一次睡一个大脑半球来实现这一点。其他人，包括人类，甚至果蝇，可以在接收到显著信息后迅速醒来，这意味着一些感觉神经元可能充当清醒的“哨兵”。利用果蝇的嗅觉系统作为感觉-唤醒模型，我将确定哪些嗅觉通路在觉醒时具有特权作用，以及涉及的神经元是否表现出独特的生理特性或以不同的方式连接到唤醒中心。第二，我打算研究促进觉醒的通路的可塑性，并确定是否后天习得的而不是原始的可以整合到这个回路中。最后，我将讨论唤醒系统是否在亲缘关系密切但生态上不同的果蝇物种中进化。苍蝇化学感觉系统进化迅速，睡眠期间的价码是否已被适当地跨物种边界翻译，仍有待观察：不同物种是否会根据与它们的历史学相关的线索醒来？这项工作承诺将深入到感觉神经科学的一个未被探索的领域，并为使动物能够从睡眠中受益而减轻其带来的挑战的现象提供机械解释。

Sensory systems act as an interface between an organism and its environment, communicating relevant information to instructappropriate behavioural outputs, such as locating food, a mate or evading danger. Remaining alert to cues present in theenvironment is therefore paramount to survival and is a need that prevails even during sleep. To benefit from the restorativeproperties of sleep, animals transition into an unconscious state which is characterised by a marked sensory disconnection from theworld. This leaves them not only vulnerable but less able to respond to cues which may have a direct impact on their fitness. How doanimals balance the need to sleep with other competing behavioural drives? One solution is to remain partially awake, which someanimals achieve by sleeping one brain hemisphere at a time. Others, including humans and even fruit flies can rapidly wake up uponreceiving salient information, implying that some sensory neurons may act as awake "sentinels".Using the fruit fly olfactory system as a sensory-arousal model, I will determine which olfactory pathways have a privileged role inwaking and whether the neurons involved exhibit distinctive physiological properties or differentially connect to arousal centres.Secondly, I intend to investigate the plasticity of wake promoting pathways and ascertain whether learned as opposed to innatevalence can be integrated into this circuit. Lastly, I will address whether the arousal system has evolved in closely related yetecologically discrete fruit fly species. Fly chemosensory systems evolve rapidly and whether valence encoding during sleep has beentranslated appropriately across species borders, remains to be seen: Do different species wake to cues that are relevant to theirecology? This work promises to delve into an unexplored realm of sensory neuroscience and offer mechanistic explanations for aphenomenon that enables animals to benefit from sleep yet mitigate the challenges it poses.