141 research outputs found
PO-0823: Evaluation of the accuracy of Cyberknife tumor tracking using gafchromic EBT3 films
PO-0803: Validation of a pre-treatment delivery quality assurance method for the CyberKnife Synchrony System
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Perinatal Asphyxia Affects Rat Auditory Processing: Implications for Auditory Perceptual Impairments in Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Perinatal asphyxia, a naturally and commonly occurring risk factor in birthing, represents one of the major causes of neonatal encephalopathy with long term consequences for infants. Here, degraded spectral and temporal responses to sounds were recorded from neurons in the primary auditory cortex (A1) of adult rats exposed to asphyxia at birth. Response onset latencies and durations were increased. Response amplitudes were reduced. Tuning curves were broader. Degraded successive-stimulus masking inhibitory mechanisms were associated with a reduced capability of neurons to follow higher-rate repetitive stimuli. The architecture of peripheral inner ear sensory epithelium was preserved, suggesting that recorded abnormalities can be of central origin. Some implications of these findings for the genesis of language perception deficits or for impaired language expression recorded in developmental disorders, such as autism spectrum disorders, contributed to by perinatal asphyxia, are discussed
Impaired Sprouting and Axonal Atrophy in Cerebellar Climbing Fibres following In Vivo Silencing of the Growth-Associated Protein GAP-43
The adult mammalian central nervous system has a limited ability to establish new connections and to recover from traumatic or degenerative events. The olivo-cerebellar network represents an excellent model to investigate neuroprotection and repair in the brain during adulthood, due to its high plasticity and ordered synaptic organization. To shed light on the molecular mechanisms involved in these events, we focused on the growth-associated protein GAP-43 (also known as B-50 or neuromodulin). During development, this protein plays a crucial role in growth and in branch formation of neurites, while in the adult it is only expressed in a few brain regions, including the inferior olive (IO) where climbing fibres (CFs) originate. Following axotomy GAP-43 is usually up-regulated in association with regeneration. Here we describe an in vivo lentiviral-mediated gene silencing approach, used for the first time in the olivo-cerebellar system, to efficiently and specifically downregulate GAP-43 in rodents CFs. We show that lack of GAP-43 causes an atrophy of the CF in non-traumatic conditions, consisting in a decrease of its length, branching and number of synaptic boutons. We also investigated CF regenerative ability by inducing a subtotal lesion of the IO. Noteworthy, surviving CFs lacking GAP-43 were largely unable to sprout on surrounding Purkinje cells. Collectively, our results demonstrate that GAP-43 is essential both to maintain CFs structure in non-traumatic condition and to promote sprouting after partial lesion of the IO
Stochastically Gating Ion Channels Enable Patterned Spike Firing through Activity-Dependent Modulation of Spike Probability
The transformation of synaptic input into patterns of spike output is a
fundamental operation that is determined by the particular complement of ion
channels that a neuron expresses. Although it is well established that
individual ion channel proteins make stochastic transitions between conducting
and non-conducting states, most models of synaptic integration are
deterministic, and relatively little is known about the functional consequences
of interactions between stochastically gating ion channels. Here, we show that a
model of stellate neurons from layer II of the medial entorhinal cortex
implemented with either stochastic or deterministically gating ion channels can
reproduce the resting membrane properties of stellate neurons, but only the
stochastic version of the model can fully account for perithreshold membrane
potential fluctuations and clustered patterns of spike output that are recorded
from stellate neurons during depolarized states. We demonstrate that the
stochastic model implements an example of a general mechanism for patterning of
neuronal output through activity-dependent changes in the probability of spike
firing. Unlike deterministic mechanisms that generate spike patterns through
slow changes in the state of model parameters, this general stochastic mechanism
does not require retention of information beyond the duration of a single spike
and its associated afterhyperpolarization. Instead, clustered patterns of spikes
emerge in the stochastic model of stellate neurons as a result of a transient
increase in firing probability driven by activation of HCN channels during
recovery from the spike afterhyperpolarization. Using this model, we infer
conditions in which stochastic ion channel gating may influence firing patterns
in vivo and predict consequences of modifications of HCN
channel function for in vivo firing patterns
Purkinje cell input to cerebellar nuclei in tottering: Ultrastructure and physiology
Homozygous tottering mice are spontaneous ataxic mutants, which carry a mutation in the gene encoding the ion pore of the P/Q-type voltage-gated calcium channels. P/Q-type calcium channels are prominently expressed in Purkinje cell terminals, but it is unknown to what extent these inhibitory terminals in tottering mice are affected at the morphological and electrophysiological level. Here, we investigated the distribution and ultrastructure of their Purkinje cell terminals in the cerebellar nuclei as well as the activities of their target neurons. The densities of Purkinje cell terminals and their synapses were not significantly affected in the mutants. However, the Purkinje cell terminals were enlarged and had an increased number of vacuoles, whorled bodies, and mitochondria. These differences started to occur between 3 and 5 weeks of age and persisted throughout adulthood. Stimulation of Purkinje cells in adult tottering mice resulted in inhibition at normal latencies, but the activities of their postsynaptic neurons in the cerebellar nuclei were abnormal in that the frequency and irregularity of their spiking patterns were enhanced. Thus, although the number of their terminals and their synaptic contacts appear quantitatively intact, Purkinje cells in tottering mice show several signs of axonal damage that may contribute to altered postsynaptic activities in the cerebellar nuclei
Burst-Time-Dependent Plasticity Robustly Guides ON/OFF Segregation in the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus
Spontaneous retinal activity (known as “waves”) remodels synaptic connectivity to the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) during development. Analysis of retinal waves recorded with multielectrode arrays in mouse suggested that a cue for the segregation of functionally distinct (ON and OFF) retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) in the LGN may be a desynchronization in their firing, where ON cells precede OFF cells by one second. Using the recorded retinal waves as input, with two different modeling approaches we explore timing-based plasticity rules for the evolution of synaptic weights to identify key features underlying ON/OFF segregation. First, we analytically derive a linear model for the evolution of ON and OFF weights, to understand how synaptic plasticity rules extract input firing properties to guide segregation. Second, we simulate postsynaptic activity with a nonlinear integrate-and-fire model to compare findings with the linear model. We find that spike-time-dependent plasticity, which modifies synaptic weights based on millisecond-long timing and order of pre- and postsynaptic spikes, fails to segregate ON and OFF retinal inputs in the absence of normalization. Implementing homeostatic mechanisms results in segregation, but only with carefully-tuned parameters. Furthermore, extending spike integration timescales to match the second-long input correlation timescales always leads to ON segregation because ON cells fire before OFF cells. We show that burst-time-dependent plasticity can robustly guide ON/OFF segregation in the LGN without normalization, by integrating pre- and postsynaptic bursts irrespective of their firing order and over second-long timescales. We predict that an LGN neuron will become ON- or OFF-responsive based on a local competition of the firing patterns of neighboring RGCs connecting to it. Finally, we demonstrate consistency with ON/OFF segregation in ferret, despite differences in the firing properties of retinal waves. Our model suggests that diverse input statistics of retinal waves can be robustly interpreted by a burst-based rule, which underlies retinogeniculate plasticity across different species
Acute and repetitive fronto-cerebellar tDCS stimulation improves mood in non-depressed participants
Experimental analysis and computational modeling of interburst intervals in spontaneous activity of cortical neuronal culture
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