Photostimulation

…optogenetics now enables precise photostimulation of experimenter-specified groups of individual neurons, while simultaneous two-photon calcium imaging enables the measurement of ongoing and induced activity across the neural population. Despite the enormous space of potential photostimulation patterns and the time-consuming nature of photostimulation experiments, very little algorithmic work has been done to dete

In-vivo measurements are inherently hampered by the motion of behaving animals, particularly in case of using voltage sensitive dyes when the signal is acquired from small regions of interest to get the maximal temporal precision. Here we present an FPGA-based, clearly acousto-optical 3D online motion correction for signal extraction on high temporal resolution of 100 kHz on a volume of 500x500x400 um up to 100 Hz of motion with a residual motion under 1 um at proper signal-to-noise ratio. The correction can be combined with all scanning modes, including point-scan, squared- and ribbon-based s

Available treatments for brain disorders are commonly pharmacological in nature. Yet, the efficacy and the risk/benefit ratio of brain therapeutics -when they exist- are often dampened by the selectivity of the blood-brain barrier and off-target actions of the molecules, at the periphery as well as in the brain. To improve the efficacy of therapeutic molecules for the brain, their loading in polymersomes (synthetic polymer vesicles) represents a promising strategy due to their high stability, versatility and ability to transport drugs with high efficiency. However, encapsulation does not allow

Accumulating evidence has substantiated that various brain functions are encoded by a sparse ensemble of experience-activated neurons. However, it remains elusive whether stress-specific ensembles ever exist and contribute to the pathogenesis of depression. Utilizing activity-dependent viral strategies, here we identified sparse stress ensembles primarily located in the middle part of the lateral hypothalamus (mLH) and the medial part of the lateral habenula (LHbM), which were universally recruited by various stressors. Remarkably, merely silencing these sparse ensembles entirely eliminated th

Accumulating evidence has substantiated that various brain functions are encoded by a sparse population of experience-activated neurons. However, it remains elusive whether stress-responsive neurons ever exist and contribute to the pathogenesis of depression. Utilizing activity-dependent viral strategies, here we identified sparse stress-responsive neurons primarily located in the middle part of the lateral hypothalamus (mLH) and the medial part of the lateral habenula (LHbM), which were universally recruited by various stressors. Remarkably, merely silencing these stress-responsive neurons en

The Head Direction (HD) system is important for spatial orientation. The Anterior thalamic nucleus (ATN) is one of the critical brain regions for the system. It is composed of two main subdivisions: the anterodorsal nucleus (AD) and anteroventral nucleus (AV). It receives HD inputs originated from the lateral mammillary nucleus (LMN), and it sends HD information to the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) and presubiculum (PrS). However, it has been unclear which thalamic neurons target RSC or PrS. Moreover, the input connectivity from the upstream lateral mammillary nucleus (LMN) is has not been clearl

Recent experiments have revealed that visual cortex operates as an inhibition-stabilized network (ISN), in which unstable excitatory coupling is balanced by strong inhibition. Computational models like the stabilized supralinear network (SSN) describe the mechanisms behind this regime, and also postulate that a transition occurs from non-ISN to ISN dynamics with increasing visual input. However, while some studies find input-dependent effects that support a shift in dynamical regime, others have shown ISN-like dynamics in the spontaneous state, leaving open questions about the existence and na

The conversion of visual input into behavior requires whole-brain circuits of diverse neurons. Due to the inaccessibility of mammalian model systems, there exists a gap in understanding how these neurons are connected and influence neural response dynamics that underlie behavior. Recent studies into the visually guided optomotor response (OMR) in larval zebrafish have attempted to bridge this gap by proposing circuit models that predict connectivity among functionally identified response classes of motion-processing neurons driving the OMR [1,2]. However, these models only consider responses o