Topic: optotagging

Precise identification of in-vivo cell types using electrophysiological signals would allow for the simultaneous monitoring of different cell populations during behavior. Current approaches typically classify waveforms into broad- and narrow-spiking. However, these methods rarely augment analysis of waveforms with other physiological properties (e.g., inter-spike intervals) or validate against “ground truth” obtained through optotagging. We need a principled and validated approach to combine multiple physiological properties to delineate cell types in-vivo in an unsupervised manner. Our appro

Voluntary movement in animal is regulated be the sensorimotor cortex. The cortex generates the motor command as well as signals to increase the weight of relevant sensory information (sensory gating) that are both essential for the realization of adapted and coordinated movements. The corticospinal tract (CST) is the most direct pathway conveying these signals. Our previous work on anesthetized mice has shown that the lumbar projecting CST induces mainly the modulation of sensory information rather than the direct control of muscle contraction. The aim of our study is to identify the implicati

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is known to be involved in working memory, executive control, attention, and decision making. It integrates internal information and states with external information from the environment which results in timely and appropriate behavioral responses. It remains unknown how distinct excitatory cell types within PFC contribute to population activity and behavior. We investigate two major excitatory cell types within the PFC - extratelencephalic (ET) and intratelencephalic (IT) neurons. Anatomical analysis in transgenic mouse lines shows that ET neurons project to subcor

Effective decision-making requires not just resolving difficult choices but evaluating the quality of decisions once they are made. The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) plays a key role in decision-making and has been shown to perform metacognitive computations such as post-decision confidence, i.e. the probability of being correct given the subjective evidence. How and where OFC calculations of decision confidence are output to other cortical and sub-cortical circuits is as yet unclear.Here we examined the activity of neurons in the OFC of rats, while they were performing an auditory choice task wi

The laterodorsal tegmentum (LDT) is a brainstem nucleus that sends direct projections to the nucleus accumbens (NAc), a key brain region involved in reward and motivation. We have previously shown that LDT-NAc inputs are crucial for reward value, triggering preference and shifting value of natural rewards. However, if and how these specific projections mediate the rewarding properties of drugs of abuse remains elusive. Importantly, ex-vivo studies showed that cocaine exposure triggers neuroplasticity changes in the LDT and in the NAc, suggesting that LDT-NAc circuitry may be an important targe