神经生物学

Large-scale recording of neural activity in waking animals provides us with a window on computations performed in the brain during behavior. In order to better understand these computations, population decoding techniques are used to study what information about the external envir ...

Patch‐Clamp in Awake Mice? Membrane potential dynamics resulting from the integration of thousands of synaptic inputs and intrinsic membrane properties underlie the generation of action potential in neurons of the central nervous system. The investigation of membrane potenti ...

The recording of local field potentials (LFPs) has become a major tool in the analysis of electrical signaling in the brain. By yielding information about correlated activity in small neuronal populations, LFPs have been used to study mechanisms of sensory encoding, motor planning, cogni ...

Dynamic clamp is a technique that combines computer modeling with experimental electrophysiology and is used to examine how specific ion channels modulate a variety of single-cell activities, by artificially emulating the response properties of specific ionic conductances du ...

The introduction of fluorescent probes and light-sensitive molecules and the recent development of optogenetics are tremendously contributing to our understanding of neuronal circuit function. In parallel with the development of these optical tools, new technologies for the ...

Voltage-sensitive dye imaging (VSDI) is the optical interrogation of transmembrane voltage using an exogenous membrane-bound probe. When bulk-applied to intact tissue, voltage-sensitive dyes allow the measurement at high temporal and spatial resolution of subthreshold po ...

The recent development of optical methods for controlling the activity of specific populations of neurons holds tremendous promise for understanding the roles of neural subtypes in local circuits, a major goal of systems neuroscience. Optogenetic tools, in combination with elect ...

Cortical activity during sleep and waking is traditionally investigated with electroencephalography (EEG). The most distinctive feature of neocortical activity during sleep is the occurrence of EEG slow waves, arising from quasi-synchronous periods of activity and silence a ...

Most of our understanding of the brain activity and its relation to behavior comes from the electrophysiological studies of neuronal activity at different levels. Extracellular recording of spiking and local field potential activity gives the most comprehensive picture of the bra ...

The elementary information transfer between two neurons is represented by the generation of a synaptic current in the post-synaptic element due to the activation of post-synaptic receptors by a neurotransmitter quantum. The duration and the amplitude of such signals are largely dete ...

Functional properties of neuronal circuits can be best studied in vivo in the living mammalian brain. The use of optical methods, like two-photon calcium imaging, permits analyses of network function at single-cell resolution. This chapter provides a step-by-step description of this te ...

The acute slice preparation can be a powerful tool to study brain networks that would otherwise be difficult to manipulate at the synaptic and cellular levels. In the first part of this chapter, we discuss the specific challenges of preparing brain slices to study neural networks, and we review sol ...

From brain slice to freely moving mouse, optical methods are being used to probe single neuron physiology and neural circuit function. Efforts in physics, engineering, and genetics have resulted in novel techniques that permit more refined optical interrogation of brain function. The f ...

Brain rhythms are the most prominent signal measured noninvasively in humans with magneto-/electro-encephalography (MEG/EEG). MEG/EEG measured rhythms have been shown to be functionally relevant and signature changes are used as markers of disease states. Despite the importan ...

Excitability and effective connectivity are key parameters of cortical circuits’ functioning. Moreover, alterations of these parameters have been suggested to underlie neurologic and psychiatric conditions. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) combined with neu ...

The study of neuronal microcircuits with paired electrophysiological recordings from synaptically coupled neurons in brain slices has revealed a large variety of neuronal cell types with highly distinct and connection-specific characteristics of synaptic transmission. ...

Stereological techniques that estimate cell numbers require specific training and elaborate sampling strategies to infer total numbers of cells in well-defined structures of measurable volume. The isotropic fractionator is a fast and inexpensive method that requires little s ...

The purpose of this introductory chapter is to provide an overview of a number of techniques used to study the brain’s anatomical organization, with particular focus on the investigation of the mammalian neocortex, the large outer surface of the brain and the key structure responsible for com ...

Optical manipulation allows researchers to alter the activity of genetically defined neural populations with millisecond-scale temporal accuracy. This facilitates the activation and inactivation of functionally distinct subnetworks at precise times relative to beha ...

The ability to turn on and off specific cell types and neural pathways in the brain, in a temporally precise fashion, has begun to enable the ability to test the sufficiency and necessity of particular neural activity patterns, and particular neural circuits, in the generation of normal and abnorm ...