Synchrony

In vitro neuronal models are valuable tools for studying neural diseases and neurotoxicology. With the use of microelectrode arrays, the Maestro Pro can measure the electrical activity of neural cultures in a high throughput, label-free manner. Here, an optimized in vitro assay is demonstrated to characterize the response of neural cultures to neuroactive compounds. 40,000 primary cortical rat neurons per well were plated on CytoView 24-well plates, and neural activity and viability were monitored on the Maestro Pro. To determine the optimal culture conditions for compound dosing, neural netwo

Recent advances in optogenetics allow for stimulation of neurons with sub-millisecond spike jitter and single neuron selectivity. Already this precision has revealed new levels of cortical sensitivity: stimulating tens of neurons can yield changes in the mean firing rate of thousands of similarly tuned neurons. This extreme sensitivity suggests that cortical dynamics are near criticality. Criticality is often studied in neural systems as a non-equilibrium thermodynamic process in which scale-free patterns of activity, called avalanches, emerge between distinct states of spontaneous activity. W

…swarm in millions while maintaining synchrony among individuals. However, whether locusts share and maintain the same socio-behavioral patterns – between groups, individuals and situations – remains an open question. Studying marching locusts under lab conditions, we found that (1) different groups behave differently; (2) locusts within a group homogenize their behavior; and (3) individuals have different socio-behavioral tendencies and context-de

The cerebellum permits a wide range of behaviors that involve sensorimotor integration. We have been investigating how specific cellular and synaptic specializations of cerebellar neurons measured in vitro, give rise to circuit activity in vivo. We have investigated these issues by studying Purkinje neurons as well as the large neurons of the mouse cerebellar nuclei, which form the major excitatory premotor projection from the cerebellum. Large CbN cells have ion channels that favor spontaneous action potential firing and GABAA receptors that generate ultra-fast inhibitory synaptic currents, r