The Role of Neural Activity in the Development of Thalamocortical Connections

The Role of Neural Activity in the Development of Thalamocortical Connections PDF Author: Daniel Blakey
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Handbook of Brain Microcircuits

Handbook of Brain Microcircuits PDF Author: Gordon M. Shepherd
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190636114
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 625

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Book Description
In order to focus on principles, each chapter in this work is brief, organized around 1-3 wiring diagrams of the key circuits, with several pages of text that distil the functional significance of each microcircuit

Jasper's Basic Mechanisms of the Epilepsies

Jasper's Basic Mechanisms of the Epilepsies PDF Author: Jeffrey Noebels
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0199746540
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 1258

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Book Description
Jasper's Basic Mechanisms, Fourth Edition, is the newest most ambitious and now clinically relevant publishing project to build on the four-decade legacy of the Jasper's series. In keeping with the original goal of searching for "a better understanding of the epilepsies and rational methods of prevention and treatment.", the book represents an encyclopedic compendium neurobiological mechanisms of seizures, epileptogenesis, epilepsy genetics and comordid conditions. Of practical importance to the clinician, and new to this edition are disease mechanisms of genetic epilepsies and therapeutic approaches, ranging from novel antiepileptic drug targets to cell and gene therapies.

Neural Dynamics Underlying Initiation and Control of Pathological Thalamocortical Oscillations

Neural Dynamics Underlying Initiation and Control of Pathological Thalamocortical Oscillations PDF Author: Jordan Michael Sorokin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Neural oscillations -- or, "brain waves" -- are a ubiquitous feature in a wide variety of cognitive processes. Underlying many of these oscillations are strong recurrent connections between the cortex and the thalamus, known as the cortico-thalamo-cortical (CTC) network. This network plays an important role in synchronizing sensory information, transitioning the brain into sleep, facilitating memory consolidation, modulating attention, and many other processes. However, under certain conditions the CTC network becomes hyper-synchronized and produces pathological oscillations termed absence seizures, which can hinder normal brain function and negatively impact learning and development. While the genetic mutations and single-cell physiology of absence seizures have been well characterized, there are conflicting hypotheses regarding the roles of the thalamus and cortex in the initiation and maintenance of absence seizures, and little understanding of network-wide dynamics during transitions into and out of seizures. This is partially due to the difficulty in selectively targeting the cortex or thalamus (given their recurrent connections), as well as the challenge of simultaneously recording neural activity from these regions. In this dissertation, I examine thalamic and cortical neural dynamics involved in seizure control, with the aim to improve our ability to treat patients with absence epilepsy and provide a more complete picture of how CTC oscillations can go awry. In chapter 1 I provide an overview of the current knowledge and working hypotheses in the field, and summarize the work contained in subsequent chapters. In chapter 2 I investigate the ability of the thalamus to control seizures in real-time by manipulating the firing mode of a large population of thalamic neurons. Phasic thalamic output to the cortex can induce seizures, while tonic thalamic output can interrupt them. In chapter 3 I describe efforts to understand the relationship between pre-seizure neural activity and subsequent seizure strength. Individual absence seizures can vary in their duration, hinting that the recruitment and/or synchronization of the CTC network may be heterogeneous and possibly dependent on pre-seizure brain activity. In chapter 4 I expand on this work by simultaneously recording individual neurons from both the cortex and thalamus to gain a more detailed description of pre-seizure neural dynamics. Lastly in chapter 5 I evaluate the ability to track individual neurons during seizures and demonstrate how inferences of neural activity become corrupted due to poor single-cell resolution during synchronous events.

Development of Thalamocortical Connections

Development of Thalamocortical Connections PDF Author: Zoltán Molnár
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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The Cognitive Thalamus

The Cognitive Thalamus PDF Author: Yuri B. Saalmann
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
ISBN: 2889195414
Category : Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Languages : en
Pages : 127

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Book Description
Cognitive processing is commonly conceptualized as being restricted to the cerebral cortex. Accordingly, electrophysiology, neuroimaging and lesion studies involving human and animal subjects have almost exclusively focused on defining roles for cerebral cortical areas in cognition. Roles for the thalamus in cognition have been largely ignored despite the fact that the extensive connectivity between the thalamus and cerebral cortex gives rise to a closely coupled thalamo-cortical system. However, in recent years, growing interest in the thalamus as much more than a passive sensory structure, as well as methodological advances such as high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging of the thalamus and improved electrode targeting to subregions of thalamic nuclei using electrical stimulation and diffusion tensor imaging, have fostered research into thalamic contributions to cognition. Evidence suggests that behavioral context modulates processing in primary sensory, or first-order, thalamic nuclei (for example, the lateral geniculate and ventral posterior nuclei), allowing attentional filtering of incoming sensory information at an early stage of brain processing. Behavioral context appears to more strongly influence higher-order thalamic nuclei (for example, the pulvinar and mediodorsal nucleus), which receive major input from the cortex rather than the sensory periphery. Such higher-order thalamic nuclei have been shown to regulate information transmission in frontal and higher-order sensory cortex according to cognitive demands. This Research Topic aims to bring together neuroscientists who study different parts of the thalamus, particularly thalamic nuclei other than the primary sensory relays, and highlight the thalamic contributions to attention, memory, reward processing, decision-making, and language. By doing so, an emphasis is also placed on neural mechanisms common to many, if not all, of these cognitive operations, such as thalamo-cortical interactions and modulatory influences from sources in the brainstem and basal ganglia. The overall view that emerges is that the thalamus is a vital node in brain networks supporting cognition.

Development of Thalamocortical Connections

Development of Thalamocortical Connections PDF Author: Zoltan Molnar
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9783540642251
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
This book addresses the current debate on the areal specialization of the cerebral cortex, with a detailed examination of the interactions between the developing thalamus and cerebral cortex. It discusses recent in vivo and in vitro approaches and how they reveal possible guiding mechanisms involved in the deployment of the thalamocortical fibers and the earliest interactions between the new thalamic fibers and the developing cortical circuitry. It also presents new views on the possible evolutionary origin of the developmental algorithms employed during thalamocortical development.

Cortical Development

Cortical Development PDF Author: Ryoichiro Kageyama
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9784431561170
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book reviews recent progress in cortical development research, focusing on the mechanisms of neural stem cell regulation, neuronal diversity and connectivity formation, and neocortical organization. Development of the cerebral cortex, the center for higher brain functions such as cognition, memory, and decision making, is one of the major targets of current research. The cerebral cortex is divided into many areas, including motor, sensory, and visual cortices, each of which consists of six layers containing a variety of neurons with different activities and connections. As this book explains, such diversity in neuronal types and connections is generated at various levels. First, neural stem cells change their competency over time, giving sequential rise to distinct types of neurons and glial cells: initially deep layer neurons, then superficial layer neurons, and lastly astrocytes. The activities and connections of neurons are further modulated via interactions with other brain regions, such as the thalamocortical circuit, and via input from the environment. This book on cortical development is essential reading for students, postdocs, and neurobiologists.

Functional Connections of Cortical Areas

Functional Connections of Cortical Areas PDF Author: S. Murray Sherman
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262315009
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
Two leading authorities on thalamocortical connections consider how the neural circuits of the brain relate to our actions and perceptions. In this book, two leading authorities on the thalamus and its relationship to cortex build on their earlier findings to arrive at new ways of thinking about how the brain relates to the world, to cognition, and behavior. Based on foundations established earlier in their book Exploring the Thalamus and Its Role in Cortical Function, the authors consider the implications of these ground rules for thalamic inputs, thalamocortical connections, and cortical outputs. The authors argue that functional and structural analyses of pathways connecting thalamus and cortex point beyond these to lower centers and through them to the body and the world. Each cortical area depends on the messages linking it to body and world. These messages relate to the way we act and think; each cortical area receives thalamic inputs and has outputs to motor centers. Sherman and Guillery go on to discuss such topics as the role of branching axons that carry motor instructions as well as copies of these motor instructions for relay to cortex under the control of the thalamic gate. This gate allows the thalamus to control the passage of information on the basis of which cortex relates to the rest of the nervous system.

Embryonic Motility and Sensitivity

Embryonic Motility and Sensitivity PDF Author: William T. Preyer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Embryology
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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