Browsing Faculty of Arts and Sciences by Keyword "Biology, Neuroscience"
Now showing items 1-20 of 119
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A Computational Approach to Analysis and Control\\of the Mammalian Circadian Oscillator
(2018-05-11)Circadian rhythms, endogenous, entrainable, near-24 h oscillations in metabolism, are a nearly ubiquitous feature of life on Earth. Circadian rhythms function as a feedforward biological control system that reorganizes ... -
A Framework for Understanding Small Nervous Systems
(2017-01-09)How do we find important neurons and understand how their dynamics control behavior? Both of these are challenging and general problems in neuroscience. In this dissertation supervised by Sharad Ramanathan, I developed a ... -
A Variant Mode of Mammalian Olfaction
(2017-01-18)Olfaction – the sense of smell – informs animals about food, mates, threats, and other chemical signals. The odors most relevant to survival and reproduction vary across species and ecology; for this reason, olfactory ... -
Aberrant microRNA Expression in Spinal Muscular Atrophy Motor Neurons
(2015-05-18)Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) is a devastating autosomal-recessive pediatric neurodegenerative disease characterized by loss of spinal motor neurons. It is caused by mutation in the survival of motor neuron 1, SMN1, gene ... -
Activity Dependent Regulation of Inhibitory Circuitry
(2015-10-02)Inhibition controls information flow through a neural circuit by modulating synaptic integration, restricting action potentials, and coordinating the activity of ensembles of neurons. These functions are mediated by a ... -
All-Optical Neurophysiology in the 1-Photon Regime
(2018-05-13)Simultaneous optical recording and optical stimulation of neuronal activity could enable faster and more comprehensive investigation of neuronal function but is hampered by underdeveloped tools. Pairs of molecular transducers ... -
Analysis of Voluntary Behavior to Interrogate Neural Function
(2016-02-11)Mice and rats are critical to our understanding of human biology. They share most of our genome, are susceptible to most of the same diseases and usually benefit from clinical therapeutics, if only at very high doses. ... -
An Anatomical and Functional Dissection of the Role Pet1 Raphe Neurons Play in Neonatal Cardiorespiratory Homeostasis
(2016-08-26)Life-sustaining cardiorespiratory homeostasis requires the dynamic response of brainstem neural circuits. Apneas - the cessation of breathing often accompanied by bradycardia - can reflect defects in these circuits, and ... -
Bayesian Methods for Discovering Structure in Neural Spike Trains
(2016-05-18)Neuroscience is entering an exciting new age. Modern recording technologies enable simultaneous measurements of thousands of neurons in organisms performing complex behaviors. Such recordings offer an unprecedented opportunity ... -
A Behavioral and Molecular Approach for Understanding Angelman Syndrome
(2016-01-13)Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a set of human developmental disorders that affects ~1 in 68 children. The clinical features of ASD include deficits in social behavior and frequent co-morbidity of motor, emotional and ... -
Biochemical and Genomic Analysis of MeCP2 and Brain-Enriched DNA Methylation
(2016-04-14)Disruption of the MECP2 gene leads to Rett syndrome (RTT), a severe neurological disorder with features of autism. MECP2 encodes a methyl-CpG-binding protein that has been proposed to function as a transcriptional repressor, ... -
The Biophysics of Vertebrate Hearing: A Single-Molecule Approach
(2015-05-22)Inner-ear mechanotransduction relies on tip links, fine protein filaments made of cadherin-23 and protocadherin-15 that convey tension to mechanosensitive channels at the tips of hair-cell stereocilia. The tip-link cadherins ... -
Blueprints for Smell: Defining the Architecture of the Necklace Olfactory System
(2016-09-14)Animals must extract salient information from complex environments in order to generate adaptive behaviors. Mice have evolved multiple olfactory subsystems that enable detection and discrimination of a vast range of chemical ... -
The Brain Has an Innate Immune Response That Can Limit Virus Spread
(2016-05-17)The brain has a tightly regulated environment that protects non-regenerating post-mitotic neurons and limits inflammation, which led to its description as a site of ‘immune privilege’. For example, viral and bacterial ... -
Brain-Wide Neural Dynamics Underlying Looming-Evoked Escapes and Spontaneous Exploration
(2015-05-15)Behavior is generated via brain-wide coordination of neural circuits. But until recently, it was difficult to analyze neural dynamics at cellular resolution throughout the brain during behavior. With the genetic and optical ... -
Cellular Metabolism Modulates Ion Channels That Regulate Neuronal Excitability
(2015-05-01)Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder, affecting around 1% of the world’s population. For many, drugs are available that can prevent their seizures. However, for close to one third of those who suffer from epilepsy, ... -
Central Control Circuit for Context-Dependent Micturition
(2016-12-13)Precise control of urine release (micturition) serves an essential physiological function, as well as a critical role in social communication in many animals. Here we show a combined effect of olfaction and social hierarchy ... -
Characterization of Dopamine-Responsive Serotonergic Neurons Underlying Aggression Modulation
(2016-04-04)The monoaminergic neuromodulatory systems (including the noraderenergic, serotonergic, and dopaminergic neuronal systems) have long been thought of as the custodians of mental health. Dysfunction amongst these neural ... -
Co-opting Intracellular Proteins for Cell-Specific Gene Manipulation
(2015-01-22)Studies of complex multicellular organisms would benefit from the ability to selectively manipulate the activities of any cell type of interest. Our ability to achieve this is currently limited by technology and available ... -
Coding of Internal Senses: Vagal Gut-to-Brain Circuits
(2016-05-17)Our ability to detect features of environments in and around us is fundamental. Organisms have developed highly specialized systems to allow for transduction of a broad variety of stimuli to convey sensory information to ...