| 1. Our Lab In The Media |
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1. Our research on complete protection from stroke by mild sensory stimulation (less than 5 minutes of single whisker stimulation) has been described in newspapers, magazines, and web-sites all over the world. Here are the links for two examples: Los Angeles Times (11-17-2011): http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-stroke-injury-rats-20111117,0,3950719.story Los Angeles Times (11-20-2010): http://articles.latimes.com/2010/nov/19/health/la-he-stroke-stimulation-20101118 Science News Magazine (11-19-2010): |
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| 2. Second Edition of In Vivo Optical Imaging of Brain Function |
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The second edition of the book: In Vivo Optical Imaging of Brain Functions now available from CRC Press (2009). It is updated to reflect continuous development of a variety of invasive and non-invasive optical techniques used to study the living brain in animals and humans at various spatial and temporal resolutions. Topics include: voltage-sensitive dyes imaging in awake behaving animals, imaging based on genetically encoded probes, imaging of mitochondrial auto-fluorescence as a tool for cortical mapping, using pH-sensitive dyes for functional mapping, modulated imaging, 2-photon imaging principles, calcium imaging of neuronal activity using-2-photon microscopy, Fourier approach to optical imaging, intrinsic signal optical imaging in animals and humans, scattered light imaging, diffuse optical tomography and imaging based on fast optical signals. |
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3. Evaluation of some of our recent papers by the "Faculty of 1000": |
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| Faculty Member | Comments |
Kathleen Rockland
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The authors present physiological evidence, from monitoring supra- and subthreshold activations in rat barrel cortex and adjacent areas after single whisker activation, for a concurrent dual organization of neocortex, with both topographic and non-topographic components. They further raise the interesting possibility that the more extensively investigated topographic specificity of evoked sensory activity could be extracted from the large-scale non-specific activation. Research on sensory cortical organization has overwhelmingly emphasized topographic organization and its putative basis in "driving" "bottom-up" signalling from the periphery via the thalamus. A contrast is then made with the great "modulatory" systems (serotonergic, dopaminergic, noradrenergic, cholinergic) as well as, to some extent, with "top-down" cortical feedback connections, which are more spatially divergent and by implication more "modulatory". In this study, the authors take a different view, which gives new importance to non-topographic connections. They show cortical activations as "spilling over" across conventional areas and suggest that the activity spread is due to sparse long-range horizontal connections. The experimental documentation for this claim -- of labeled fibers invading neighboring territories -- is plausible, but immediately raises the question of whether there is a specialized subset of pyramidal neurons that give rise to these particular long-range, non-topographical connections. While the proposal appears novel and/or an outlier view of cortical organization, the authors accurately relate their findings to other work on multisensory processing and to early thinking of Pavlov on activity spreads as a potential underlying mechanism for plasticity and associative learning. Evaluated 12 Dec 2008 |
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Naturalistic experience transforms sensory maps in the adult cortex of caged animals. Polley DB, Kvasnák E, Frostig RD Nature 2004 May 6 429(6987):67-71 |
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| Faculty Member | Comments | |||||
Kathleen Rockland
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The authors use a combination of optical imaging and multi-site extracellular recording to demonstrate that simple transferral of adult rats from standard laboratory cages to a naturalistic habitat induces a large-scale functional refinement of cortical sensory maps in the barrel cortex. Cortical whisker representation contracted by 46% after 4-6 weeks in the naturalistic environment, and neuronal receptive fields became smaller and sharper, specifically in layers 2,3. The results raise important questions concerning functional plasticity, laminar specializations, and, not least, the ways in which the experimental paradigm may influence results. |
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