Exploring Interactions between the Sleep Homeostatic Process and Cortical Neuronal Dynamics

我的博士项目包括使用电生理记录、药理学和数学建模相结合的方法来探索睡眠稳态过程（在清醒时增加，在睡眠时减少）与小鼠皮质神经元活动之间的相互作用。该项目的主要目的是进一步了解这一过程的确切起源，这反映了睡眠在大脑中的最终功能。具体来说，我使用了经典的睡眠稳态过程模型，它可以在局部记录的场电位的慢波（0.5-4赫兹）活动水平中测量，以探索其在皮质斑块上的可变性，并确定这在多大程度上可以通过近期神经元活动的局部变化来解释。我进一步探讨了与临界性和神经元雪崩相关的神经元动态状态的理论动机测量如何在睡眠-觉醒周期中变化，并作为睡眠稳态过程的功能。最后，我在小鼠中研究了5-HT2A受体激动剂对睡眠的影响，它能诱导清醒质量的有效改变，对睡眠的发生和睡眠压力的积累和消散。该项目解决了BBSRC优先领域的数据驱动生物学。

My DPhil project involves the use of a combination of electrophysiological recording, pharmacology and mathematical modelling to explore interactions between the sleep homeostatic process (that which increases during wake and decreases during sleep) and activity in cortical neurones in mice. The main purpose of the project is to gain additional insight into the precise origins of this process, which reflects the ultimate functions of sleep in the brain. Specifically, I use adaptations of classic models of the sleep homeostatic process, which can be measured in the slow wave (0.5-4 Hz) activity levels of locally recorded field potentials, to explore its variability across a patch of cortex and determine to what extent this can be accounted for by local variation in recent neuronal activity. I further explore how theoretically motivated measures of neuronal dynamic state, related to criticality and neuronal avalanches, vary across the sleep-wake cycle and as a function of the sleep homeostatic process. Finally, I investigate, in mice, the effects of agonists of the 5-HT2A receptor, which induce potent alterations to the quality of wakefulness, on the occurrence of sleep and on the build-up and dissipation of sleep pressure. The project addresses the BBSRC priority area data driven biology.