Neural ensemble dynamics in behaving animals : computational approaches and applications in amygdala and striatum
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The brain must integrate many sensory signals and decide appropriate actions to take given prior knowledge and the current state of the world. Many fundamental questions remain about how exactly neural circuits perform these critical functions. A confluence of novel technologies is allowing neuroscientists to address these old biological questions and ask new ones, but has also led to new challenges in handling and analyzing large-scale neural datasets. In this dissertation, I conducted a series of studies that give novel insights into the neural coding of pain, rewarded actions, and locomotion along with new and improved computational methods for analyzing large-scale calcium imaging datasets. First, I studied how the rodent amygdala codes for pain, demonstrating that a specific neural ensemble codes for noxious stimuli and that a subset of this ensemble is stable across days to weeks. I then show that heightened behavioral responses after nerve injury parallel alterations in the neural pain code and we find that this neural ensemble is necessary to produce certain pain behaviors. Next, I demonstrate enhanced analysis and development of methods for calcium imaging cell extraction and automated cell classification. Finally, in a pair of studies, we apply large-scale calcium imaging techniques in two genetically defined neuronal populations in the mammalian striatum to detail the ensemble neural codes used for action initiation in a learning paradigm and locomotion during spontaneous behavior. Taken together, this dissertation provides new insights into pain and action selection along with powerful examples of how large-scale optical and computational methods can broaden our understanding of neural circuits.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2018; ©2018 |
| Publication date | 2018; 2018 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Ahanonu, Biafra Owowonta |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Schnitzer, Mark Jacob, 1970- |
| Thesis advisor | Schnitzer, Mark Jacob, 1970- |
| Thesis advisor | Chen, Xiaoke |
| Thesis advisor | Malenka, Robert C |
| Thesis advisor | Scherrer, Gregory |
| Thesis advisor | Yamins, Daniel |
| Degree committee member | Chen, Xiaoke |
| Degree committee member | Malenka, Robert C |
| Degree committee member | Scherrer, Gregory |
| Degree committee member | Yamins, Daniel |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Biology. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Biafra Owowonta Ahanonu, II. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Biology. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2018. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2018 by Biafra Owowonta II Ahanonu
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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