Topic: long-term memories

Microglia are the immune cells of the brain, and play increasingly appreciated roles in synapse formation, brain plasticity, and cognition. A growing appreciation that the immune system involved in diseases like schizophrenia, epilepsy, and neurodegenerative diseases has led to renewed interest in how microglia regulate synaptic connectivity. Our group previously identified the IL-1 family cytokine Interleukin-33 (IL-33) as a novel regulator of microglial activation and function. I will discuss a mechanism by which microglia regulate synaptic plasticity and long-term memories by engulfing brai

Arguably one of the biggest mysteries in neuroscience is how the brain stores long-term memories. The major challenge for investigating the neural circuit underlying memory formation in the neocortex is the distributed nature of the resulting memory trace throughout the cortex. Here, we used a new behavioral paradigm that enabled us to generate memory traces in a specific cortical location and to specifically examine the mechanisms of memory formation in that region. We found that medial-temporal inputs arrive in neocortical layer 1 where the apical dendrites of cortical pyramidal neurons pre

The hippocampus is presumably involved in spatial navigation, the formation of long-term memories in mammals, and the construction of a cognitive map of space using a prominent feature – place cells [1] (PCs). It is unclear how PCs’ neural codes are related to memory: turnover of neural representations could be involved in learning, while codes’ stability may support long-term storage and retrieval of memories [2]. In this work, we focus on the analysis of one-photon (1P) calcium imaging data recorded from mouse CA1 during free foraging in a two-dimensional arena with the help of a miniature

Sharp-wave ripples (SWRs) are thought to play a crucial role in memory consolidation, learning, and the formation of long-term memories by facilitating the transfer of information from the hippocampus to neocortical networks. To understand the mechanisms governing SWRs, we have developed a closed-loop stimulation framework tailored for the real-time detection and suppression of SWRs, leveraging the ONIX electrophysiology acquisition system and BONSAI-RX acquisition software. As part of our Bonsai package, we developed a convolutional neural network (CNN) for detection of SWRs recorded with lam