CRCNS: Community Dynamic Imaging of Corticothalamic Projections

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

Massive amounts of brain imaging data open an unprecedented window into the structure and function of the brain, yet the tools to aid the understanding of the data are lagging. The main goal of this research project is to understand the dynamics of brain function, particularly in the auditory system, through global yet very high spatial and temporal resolution imaging techniques and using the state-of-the-art analytical tools developed for analysis of dynamic social networks. The interdisciplinary neuroscience and computational team, building on promising initial results, will work to adapt these tools developed for understanding human and animal behavior to the context of brain networks and the processes that happen over them. Using this innovative approach, the team will study a particular brain pathway that connects two brain regions that are critical for normal hearing. The project will not only lead to a greater understanding of brain function, but will also bring a new technique to the neuroscience toolbox which may help other investigators to study network properties of the brain. Graduate students and postdocs in computer science and neuroscience will collaborate across disciplinary boundaries, building new scientific approaches and insights. Top-down projections are ubiquitous in sensory systems and are poorly understood. In the current proposal, a model descending system, the auditory corticothalamic projection in the mouse, will be examined. The research team will take advantage of recent methodological developments in the study of this system and ask: What is the impact of corticothalamic projections on network interactions across populations of thalamic neurons? To answer this, a novel dynamic network analysis method known as Community Dynamic Analysis, or CommDy, will be used to analyze imaging data from a brain slice preparation that retains connectivity between the auditory cortex, auditory thalamus, and other related structures in the mouse. Both calcium imaging data and flavoprotein autofluoresence imaging data will be used for this analysis. Since this study represents the first use of CommDy in neuroscience, validation studies will be done in a simplified brain slice preparation containing bilateral motor cortices and the corpus callosum.