Topic: cortico-cortical connections

Seizures often originate in an epileptic focus, from where they spread to large areas of the brain. The potential pathways of generalization are of high importance as potential targets of therapeutic intervention. Here, we are testing the hypothesis that seizures generalize from a cortical epileptic focus via thalamic pathways, rather than via direct cortico-cortical connections. Higher-order thalamic nuclei are especially likely to be involved, as they project to large areas of the cortex.We employed an optogenetic acute epilepsy mouse model, where brief (10-15s) stimulation of the layer 6 co

Neuromotor systems can functionally recover after local damage, but changes in the underlying cortical network remain unclear. In a nonhuman primate model of primary motor cortex (M1) lesions and motor recovery, we previously reported reorganization of subcortical output projections from the ipsilesional ventral premotor cortex (ip-PMv) to the cerebellum. In this study, we investigated the rewiring of cortico-cortical connections between the ip-PMv and parietal cortex using the same model. We injected biotinylated dextran amine (BDA) into the ip-PMv and compared the BDA labeling in the areas a

During NREM sleep and anesthesia, the cerebral cortex generates low-frequency synchronized activity, known as Slow Wave Oscillation (SWO). In this brain state, cortical neurons alternate between hyperpolarized Down states and depolarized Up states, which will travel from their source through cortico-cortical connections along the whole cortex. This makes the SWO an ideal model to understand cortico-cortical communication and disentangle local properties from those that are controlled by the network state.In this project, we built a computational model of coupled cortical populations under the