BRAIN EAGER: Closed Loop Computing in the Brainstem

University Of California-San Diego, La Jolla CA

Investigators

Abstract

Neuronal circuits in the brainstem are at the "front-end" of sensorimotor loops that underlie behavior and cognitive processing. They control life-sustaining functions that include breathing, movement and balance, sniffing, chewing, suckling in neonates, and, in rodents, whisking. These circuits further drive active sensation through taste, smell, balance, and touch. In this project the PI will delimit the circuits that control different motor actions and show how behaviors emerge as an assembly of these actions. The "front-end" circuits of orofacial processing control life-sustaining functions that include breathing, movement and balance, sniffing, chewing, suckling in neonates, whisking in rodents, and vocalization. The functions, some of which share common muscles, must occur without compromising the patency of the airway. The control structure is not understood and nontrivial and it will serve as a model for the control and coordination of concurrent neuronal processes at any level in the nervous system. The application of control theory to nervous systems was proposed by the Cyberneticists of the 1940s to 1960s. These prescient notions were stymied by a lack of experimental tools to identify and control the circuits that underlie behavior. We now have sufficient tools to map brainstem circuits and the PI will exploit the tools of engineering and physics to gain insight into fundamental sensorimotor processes. The technical aspect of the the PI's approach involves the introduction of molecular tools based on the expression of lineage factors and constitutive proteins to identify brainstem neurons and track tracing tools based on trans-synaptic viruses to reveal connectivity The project will contribute to the education and the training of future multidisciplinary scientists through research-based education of undergraduate and graduate students. Technical aspects of work will be broadly disseminated through the involvement of the PIs and colleagues in graduate and post-graduate summer schools.