Sammendrag
Visual information enters the nervous system through the eye and is conveyed to
the visual cortex via the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN). For a long time,
the LGN was considered a merely passive relay station, but it has recently
become apparent that signal processing in the LGN depends critically on the
state of arousal in the animal, e.g., sleep, attended inspection. These
changes in processing are mediated by projections to the LGN from brainstem
nuclei, from the perigeniculate nucleus (PGN), and through feedback from the
cortex. Pertaining studies have largely ignored the fine temporal structure
of neuronal responses, which has been shown to be critical to neural
information processing in many parts of the neural system
We study the influence of modulating brainstem and PGN input on temporal
encoding in the LGN. To this end, we apply, and, where necessary, develop
time series analysis methods to achieve a proper classification of signal
processing states in LGN. Data will be obtainedfrom collaboration with P.
Heggelund (University of Oslo) and Klaus Funke (Ruhr University Bochum). We
plan to elucidate the mechanisms giving rise to the observed changes by
studying realistic networks of spiking model neurons, and unveil the
underlying principles by reducing these models to a field-theoretical
description of the visual pathway and its modulating inputs.
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Vitenskapelig sammendrag
Visual information enters the nervous system through the eye and is conveyed to
the visual cortex via the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN). For a long time,
the LGN was considered a merely passive relay station, but it has recently
become apparent that signal processing in the LGN depends critically on the
state of arousal in the animal, e.g., sleep, attended inspection. These
changes in processing are mediated by projections to the LGN from brainstem
nuclei, from the perigeniculate nucleus (PGN), and through feedback from the
cortex. Pertaining studies have largely ignored the fine temporal structure
of neuronal responses, which has been shown to be critical to neural
information processing in many parts of the neural system
We study the influence of modulating brainstem and PGN input on temporal
encoding in the LGN. To this end, we apply, and, where necessary, develop
time series analysis methods to achieve a proper classification of signal
processing states in LGN. Data will be obtainedfrom collaboration with P.
Heggelund (University of Oslo) and Klaus Funke (Ruhr University Bochum). We
plan to elucidate the mechanisms giving rise to the observed changes by
studying realistic networks of spiking model neurons, and unveil the
underlying principles by reducing these models to a field-theoretical
description of the visual pathway and its modulating inputs.
Vis fullstendig beskrivelse
