Life Sciences Commons^™

Neural Circuit Reconfiguration By Social Status, Fadi A. Issa, Joanne Drummond, Daniel Cattaert, Donald H. Edwards

Neuroscience Institute Faculty Publications

The social rank of an animal is distinguished by its behavior relative to others in its community. Although social-status-dependent differences in behavior must arise because of differences in neural function, status-dependent differences in the underlying neural circuitry have only begun to be described. We report that dominant and subordinate crayfish differ in their behavioral orienting response to an unexpected unilateral touch, and that these differences correlate with functional differences in local neural circuits that mediate the responses. The behavioral differences correlate with simultaneously recorded differences in leg depressor muscle EMGs and with differences in the responses of depressor motor neurons …

Sex Differences In The Brain: The Not So Inconvenient Truth, Margaret M. Mccarthy, Arthur P. Arnold, Jeffrey D. Blaustein, Geert De Vries

Neuroscience Institute Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Voltage Oscillations And Response Dynamics In A Model Of Sensory Hair Cells, Alexander B. Neiman, Kai Dierkes, Benjamin Lindner, Andrey Shilnikov

Neuroscience Institute Faculty Publications

We used a Hodgkin-Huxley type model of the basolateral ionic currents of bullfrog sacculus to study genesis of spontaneous voltage oscillation patterns and how the spontaneous oscillations shape the response of the hair cell to external mechanical stimuli.

Phase-Lag Return Mappings For A 3 Cell Multifunctional Central Pattern Generator, Jeremy Wojcik, Robert Clewley, Andrey Shilnikov

Neuroscience Institute Faculty Publications

We describe and expand on a novel computational approach to reduce detailed models of central pattern generation to equationless return mapping for the phase lags between the constituting bursting interneurons.

Paw-Shake Response And Locomotion: Can One Cpg Generate Two Different Rhythmic Behaviors?, Alexander N. Klishko, David Cofer, Gennady Cymbalyuk, Donald H. Edwards, Boris I. Prilutsky

Neuroscience Institute Faculty Publications

Using software AnimatLab we developed a 5-segment cat hindlimb model with 12 Hill-type muscle actuators controlled by (1) a half-center CPG activating flexor and extensor muscles (two-joint muscles received both flexion- and extension-related signals) and (2) proprioceptive input originated from the muscle spindle and Golgi tendon organ afferents.

Classification And Visualization Of Neural Patterns Using Subspace Analysis Statistical Methods, Jun Xia, Marius Osan, Emilia Titan, Riana Nicolae, Remus Osan

Neuroscience Institute Faculty Publications

The size and complexity of neural data is increasing at a dramatic pace due to rapid advances in experimental technologies. As a result, the data analysis techniques are shifting their focus from single-units to neural populations. The goal is to investigate complex temporal and spatial patterns, as well as to present the results in an intuitive way, allowing for detection and monitoring of relevant neural patterns.

Evaluation Of Target Search Efficiency For Neurons During Developmental Growth, Gloria Sanin, Emily Su, Troy Shinbrot, Remus Osan

Neuroscience Institute Faculty Publications

In this work we investigated how branching and pruning influence the probability of successfully connecting to neurons located at different locations away from the initiation point, under the assumption that the neuron has finite growth resources. We find out that balanced branching and pruning, and the distance to target are essential in determining the optimal growth parameters.

Effects Of Synaptic Connectivity Inhomogeneities For Propagation Of Activity In Neural Tissue, Jie Zhang, Remus Osan

Neuroscience Institute Faculty Publications

We extended our previous models that exhibit constant speed traveling waves to investigate how the presence of these inhomogeneities affects the relationship between the speed of the activity propagation and its acceleration. We determine that the estimates from homogenization theory do not accurately capture the conditions for propagation failure.

Sexually Dimorphic Effects Of A Prenatal Immune Challenge On Social Play And Vasopressin Expression In Juvenile Rats, Patrick V. Taylor, Alexa Veenema, Matthew J. Paul, Remco Bredewold, Stephanie Isaacs, Geert De Vries

Neuroscience Institute Faculty Publications

Background: Infectious diseases and inflammation during pregnancy increase the offspring’s risk for behavioral disorders. However, how immune stress affects neural circuitry during development is not well known. We tested whether a prenatal immune challenge interferes with the development of social play and with neural circuits implicated in social behavior.

Methods: Pregnant rats were given intraperitoneal injections of the bacterial endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS – 100 μg /kg) or saline on the 15th day of pregnancy. Offspring were tested for social play behaviors between postnatal days 26–40. Brains were harvested on postnatal day 45 and processed for arginine vasopressin (AVP) mRNA in …

Geometric Analysis Of Soft Thresholds In Action Potential Initiation And The Consequences For Understanding Phase Response Curves And Model Tuning, Robert Clewley, Bryce Chung

Neuroscience Institute Faculty Publications

We perform visualization of the nullcline dynamics around threshold, and characterize important geometric properties via dominant scale analysis, which avoids the need to make asymptotic approximations. In particular, we analyze the transient dynamics during the passage through the ghost of a saddle-node bifurcation in the (V, m) phase-plane projection of a local 3D approximation to the 4D H-H equations (where sodium inactivation h is held constant).