Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Commons^™

State Dependent Function And Dynamics In Cerebral Cortical Networks, Leila Fakhraei

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cerebral cortex exhibits vigorous ongoing, internal neural activity even with no sensory input is present or the animal is minimally engaged in a task or behavior. This internal ongoing activity is not static; the ‘cortical state’ varies ranging from synchronous and highly correlated activity to asynchronous and weakly correlated neural activity. The main goal of the work presented here is to understand how changes in cortical states effect several aspects of cortical function and dynamics.

To meet this goal, we did three separate projects. First, we compared the predictability of neuronal network dynamics across cortical states in somatosensory cortex of …

Surface And Structural Modification Of Carbon Electrodes For Electroanalysis And Electrochemical Conversion, Yan Zhang

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

Electrocatalysis is key to both sensitive electrochemical sensing and efficient electrochemical energy conversion. Despite high catalytic activity, traditional metal catalysts have poor stability, low selectivity, and high cost. Metal-free, carbon-based materials are emerging as alternatives to metal-based catalysts because of their attractive features including natural abundance, environmental friendliness, high electrical conductivity, and large surface area. Altering surface functionalities and heteroatom doping are effective ways to promote catalytic performance of carbon-based catalysts. The first chapter of this dissertation focuses on developing electrode modification methods for electrochemical sensing of biomolecules. After electrochemical pretreatment, glassy carbon demonstrates impressive figures-of-merit in detecting small, redox-active …