Neurophysiology/Neuroanatomy (Biomed
533)
Fall 2009
Lectures (rm 243 BMSB): Tues & Thurs 8:30 – 10:00
Labs (rm 382): Thurs
2:00 – 4:00
http://www.unm.edu/~neurohsc/course533.htm
Note: All students
must complete the ARF Animal Use Certification before 12 November.
|
Date |
Topic |
|
Assigned Paper |
Faculty |
|
Tu 25 Aug |
5,6 S |
|
Partridge |
|
|
Th 27 Aug |
2 S 3,4 MB |
|
Cunningham |
|
|
Th 27 Aug |
3,4 MB |
|
Cunningham |
|
|
Tu 1 Sept |
|
Palmer, 2009 (25 Aug) |
Saland |
|
|
Th 3 Sept |
Sensory processing |
23 S |
|
Partridge |
|
Th 3 Sept |
5 MB |
|
Cunningham |
|
|
Tu 8 Sept |
Anatomy & physiology of retina |
27 S |
Glazewski, 2007 (3 Sept) |
Partridge |
|
Th 10 Sept |
Central visual physiology |
27 S |
Roska, 2006 (8 Sept) |
Partridge |
|
Th 10 Sept |
6 MB |
|
Cunningham |
|
|
Tu 15 Sept |
Physiology of taste |
24 S |
Ohki, 2005 (10 Sept) |
Partridge |
|
Th 17 Sept |
Olfactory physiology |
24 S |
Maruyama, 2006 (15 Sept) |
Partridge |
|
Th 17 Sept |
Quiz 1 3D anatomy of internal structures |
|
|
Cunningham |
|
Tu 22 Sept |
Auditory physiology |
26 S |
|
Partridge |
|
Th 24 Sept |
BSGP Graduate Retreat |
|
|
|
|
Tu 29 Sept |
Somatosensory physiology |
25 S |
|
Partridge |
|
Th 1 Oct |
23, 28 S |
Dallos, 2008 (22
Sept) |
Saland |
|
|
Th 1 Oct |
White
matter of cerebral hemispheres / basal ganglia) |
7 MB |
|
Cunningham |
|
Tu 6 Oct |
Proprioception |
25 S |
Ferezou, 2006 (29
Sept) |
Partridge |
|
Th 8 Oct |
Spinal Reflexes |
29 S |
Albert, 2006 (6 Oct) |
Partridge |
|
Th 8 Oct |
Lateral
ventricles and rhinencephalon |
8 MB |
|
Cunningham |
|
Tu 13 Oct |
Postural Mechanisms |
30 S |
Xia, 2005 (8 Oct) |
Partridge |
|
Th 15 Oct |
Fall Break |
|
|
|
|
Tu 20 Oct |
SfN meeting |
|
|
|
|
Th 22 Oct |
|
Lakie, 2005 (13 Oct) |
Wallace |
|
|
Th 22 Oct |
Limbic
System |
9MB |
|
Cunningham |
|
Tu 27 Oct |
Locomotion |
29 S |
Yakovenko, 2005 (27
Oct) |
Partridge |
|
Th 29 Oct |
32 S |
|
Cunningham |
|
|
Th 29 Oct |
Brainstem,
cranial nerves, cerebellum |
10, 11 MB |
|
Cunningham |
|
Tu 3 Nov |
Oculomotor function |
33 S |
Hu, 2007 (3 Nov) |
Partridge |
|
Tu 5 Nov |
Voluntary control of movement |
30 S |
Velliste 2008 (5 Nov) |
Partridge |
|
Th 5 Nov |
Quiz 2 |
|
|
Cunningham |
|
Tu 10 Nov |
Autonomic Physiology |
35 S |
|
Shuttleworth |
|
Tu 12 Nov |
Sleep and Circadian Rhythms |
41, 42 S |
He, 2009 (12 Nov) |
Partridge |
|
Th 12 Nov |
Rodent
brain structures |
|
|
Cunningham |
|
Tu 17 Nov |
43 S |
|
Valenzuela |
|
|
Th 19 Nov |
|
|
Cunningham |
|
|
Th 19 Nov |
Project |
Lagrace, 2007 |
|
Cunningham |
|
Tu 24 Nov |
Project |
|
|
Cunningham |
|
Th 26 Nov |
Thanksgiving |
|
|
|
|
Tu 1 Dec |
Learning and Memory I |
49 S |
Ranganath, 2004 (1 Dec) |
|
|
Th 3 Dec |
Learning and Memory II |
50 S |
Roberts, 2009, Hairston,
2005 (3 Dec) |
Perrone |
|
Th 3 Dec |
Project |
|
|
Cunningham |
|
Tu 8 Dec |
Quiz 3 |
|
|
Cunningham/Partridge |
|
Th 10 Dec |
Consciousness |
Leutgeb, 2005 |
|
Partridge |
|
Th 10 Dec |
Project
Discussions |
|
|
Cunningham/Partridge |
Grading
Paper presentations 30%
Project 30%
20% Written
paper
10% Oral discussion
Anatomy Quizzes 30%
Class participation 10%
Reading
Assignments
S Squire, L R. et
al. Fundamental Neuroscience 3rd ed. Elsevier, 2008.
M - Montemurro
& Bruni The Human Brain in Dissection 2nd
ed.
Additional
Assigned readings
Leutgeb, S., Leutgeb, J.K., Moser, M., Moser, E.I. (2005)
Place cells, spatial maps and the population code for memory. Current Opinion in Neurobiol. 15:109
This
paper discusses the evidence for an attractor-based population code for memory
based in the recurrent networks of the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex. Lagrace et al.,
2007, Dynamic contribution of nestin-expressing stem cells to adult
neurogenesis. J. Neuroscience 14:12623-12629. Project – Histological
methods for identifying multipotent stem cells in the CNS. Students will complete a genetic fate mapping
study of neural stem cells within the adult mouse CNS using an inducible
Nestin-Cre-loxP mouse (see Lagace et al., 2007, J.
Neuroscience 14; 12623 for description of this mouse line) Students will participate in all aspects of
tissue prep, histological sectioning of tissue and immunostaining using various
antibodies directed against stem cells and/or newly born neurons in hippocampus
subgranular zone and subventricular zones lining the lateral ventricles. Students will photodocument
their results and include them in the written paper (described below). The results will be discussed in the larger
context of adult stem cells in the CNS during the Project Discussions (see
below). 1. Paper Each student will
write a 10 page focused paper that discusses some aspect of Stem cell function in the adult
nervous system. Students should choose the precise topic after discussion with
the course faculty by Tuesday, 3 September. Papers are due on Thursday, 24 November. Some examples include: Electrophysiological
properties of adult born granule cell neurons, Mechanisms of functional
incorporation of adult born neurons into existing circuitries, Role of adult
neurogenesis in memory, Injury induced neurogenesis in brain and spinal cord,
Therapeutic potential of neural stem cells in degenerative disease….etc.. The
paper should include the following: 1. Introduction (1-2
pages) that briefly discusses the topic background 2. Methods (1-2 pages) that
were used to identify neural stem cells or new born neurons in your project.. 3. Discussion (6-8
pages) of the most important findings in the chosen topic area 4. Future
Directions: What needs to be done to advance the field to the next level. 5. References. The paper should be
clearly written using the format of any of the papers on the assigned reading
list. The inclusion of appropriate
(referenced) figures is encouraged and these will not be included in the page
limits. 2. Project
Discussions All students should
be prepared to discuss their projects during a 2 hr session on Dec 10. This discussion may include: strengths and pitfalls of methods used,
additional potential applications of the technique, and specific details of the
functional and behavioral correlates examined in the student’s paper. Students will be graded in part on their
scholarly participation in this discussion. Assigned Paper Discussions The papers listed
with certain topics will be the basis of an in-depth discussion during the
first half hour of class following the in-class discussion of that
topic. (Dates following papers refer to
the date when that topic was covered in lecture.) All students should read and be prepared to
discuss the assigned paper. The student
presenting may need to read additional papers in order to put the assigned
paper into context and lead a discussion of the paper. Discussions should include the following: · about
10 minute introduction to the paper including sufficient methods to understand
the paper · about
20 minutes of discussion concentrating on the figures and conclusions of the
paper References
for assigned paper presentations Albert, F., Bergenheim, M. Ribot-Ciscar,
E.R., Roll, J.-P. (2006) The Ia afferent feedback of a given movement
evokes the illusion of the same movement when returned to the subject via
muscle tendon vibration. Exp. Brain Res. 172:163-174. In
addition to providing the afferent limb of the stretch reflexes, muscle
spindles are the sensors for conscious proprioception. In this unusual study, Ia
activity from six main muscle groups on the ankle were recorded during a
“writing like” movement. At a later
time, this pattern was “played back” into the spindles and the subjects
reported illusionary perception of the original movement. Dallos, P., Wu, X., Cheatham,
M.A., Gao, J., Zheng, J.
Anderson, C.T., Jia, S., Want, X., Chang, W.H., Senqupta, S., He, D.Z., Zuo, J. (2008)
Prestin-based outer hair cell motility is necessary
for mammalian cochlear amplification. Neuron 58:333 – 339. This
study uses a knockout of the outer hair cell protein prestin. The results suggest that the presence of prestin is a requirement for coupling mechanical vibrations
between the basilar membrane and stereocillia. Furthermore, the results that sharp tuning of
frequency on the basilar membrane requires
amplification by the outer hair cells. Ferezou, In
another technical tour de force, this paper uses optical recording of voltage
sensitive dyes to permit measurements of the activity of somatosensory cortex
activity in freely moving mice. They
show that the neural response to whisking is dependent on the behavior of the
animal. Glazewski, S., Benedetti, B.L.,
Barth, A.L., (2007) Ipsilateral whiskers suppress experience-dependent
plasticity in the barrel cortex. J.
Neurosci. 27:3910-3920 This
is a study of the effect of converging information from both sides of the body
onto receptive fields in the somatosensory cortex. Individual whiskers in the rat map onto
discrete cortical barrel columns, which can be deprived of their input by
simply shaving a whisker. This paper
demonstrates that the size of somatosensory receptive fields depends on both
contralateral and ipsilateral sensory input. Fully
rested animals use a spatial strategy even when this strategy interferes with
performance in a non-spatial task. Conversely, sleep restricted animals used
non-spatial information, and hence improve performance in a non-spatial task. He, Y., Jones, C.R., Fujiki, N., Xu, Y., Guo, B., Holder, J.L., Rossner, M.J., Fu, Y-H. (2009) The transcriptional repressor DEC2 regulates sleep length in mammals. Science 325:866-870 (introductory material) Hu, X., Jiang, H., Gu, C., Li, C. Sparks, D.L. (2007)
Reliability of oculomotor command signals carried by
individual neurons. PNAS 104:8137-8142 Motor
commands for saccadic eye movements are produced by bursts of activity in
neurons of the pontine reticular formation. This study shows that high temporal precision
of the firing of these neurons underlies the accuracy and precision of the eye
movements. Lakie, M., Loram, I.D., (2006) Manually controlled human balancing using visual, vestibular
and proprioceptive senses involves a common, low frequency neural process. J. Physiol. 577:403-416 Subjects
used visual, vestibular, or proprioceptive sensation to balance their own body
or a mechanically equivalent unstable inverted pendulum. From these data the authors conclude that the
control of standing
requires a common central motor planning process. In
addition to the traditional 4 tastes of sour, sweet, salty, and bitter, there
is an additional sensory dimension – umami or the taste of L-glutamate. These authors conclude that this sensation
must result from novel combinations of receptors, some of which have not yet
been discovered. Ohki, K., Chung, S., Ch’ng, Y.H., Kara, P.
Reid, R.C. (2005) Functional imaging with cellular resolution reveals precise
microarchitecture in visual cortex. Nature
433:597-603 The
arrangement of the visual cortex into vertical columns of neurons with similar
orientation selectivity was one of the seminal findings in the classic work of
Hubel and Weisel. This study uses Ca2+
imaging and two-photon microscopy to determine the precision of single cells in
this exquisite organization. Odor
discrimination results from mapping odorants in a complex sensory space of
odorant receptors and glomerular activity.
In order to define the first step in this process this study used Ca2+
imaging, retrograde dye labeling, and single-cell RT-PCR to identify odorant
receptors. This is a first step in
understanding olfactory specificity under physiological conditions. Excitatory
input to neurons occurs at dendritic spines, but the electrical properties of these spines is not well characterized. The authors of this study used
voltage-sensitive dyes to measure the electrical signals in individual spines
during backpropagated action potentials and synaptic
input. They conclude that spines behave
passively and do not significantly modify the synaptic inputs. Ranganath, C., Cohen, M.X., Dam, C., D'Esposito, M. (2004) Inferior
Temporal, Prefrontal, and HippocampalContributions to
Visual Working Memory Maintenance and Associative Memory Retrieval. J. Neurosci. 24:3917- 3925 This
paper examines the idea that higher order cognition depends on the ability to
recall information and hold it in mind to guide future behavior and that these
functions may be encoded in different brain regions. The study uses fMRI
analysis to compare brain activity during performance of a visual associative
and working memory tasks. fMRI provides an indirect
assay of fairly localized brain activity, the student is encouraged not to
discuss fMRI methodology in great detail, but focus on the broader
physiological implications of the study. This
study uses fMRI to address the memory dysfunction of ecstasy users with a
modified version of the face-name task.
The study found decreaed activity in the right
medial frontal gyrus, left parahippocampal gyrus,
left dorsal cingulated gyrus, and left caudate. Roska, B., Molnar, A., Werblin,
F.S., (2006) Parallel processing in retinal ganglion cells: How integration of
space-time patterns of excitation and inhibition form the spiking output. J.
Neurophysiol. 95:3810-3822 Complex
processing of visual information occurs at the level of the retina, which has
receptors, 3 classes of interneurons, and output ganglion neurons. This study correlates morphological studies
of ganglion cells with space-time maps of their firing patterns. Velliste, M., Perel, S., Spaling,
M.C., Whitford, A.S., Schwartz, A.B. (2008) Cortical
control of a prosthetic arm for self-feeding. Nature 453:1098-1101 Monkeys
rapidly learn a brain-machine-interface that uses electrodes implanted in the
motor cortex to control a prosthetic device to feed themselves. Reflexes
were evoked by mechanical perturbations at various phases of tasks akin to
handwriting. Stretch reflexes were found
to be modulated with respect to the phase of the rhythmic task. It was concluded that central modulation of
hand reflexes reflects optimal modulation strategies. The
rate of locomotor cadence varies as a result of flexor rather than extensor
phase durations. This behavior could be
modeled with a simple half-center model of the locomotor central pattern
generator.
Humans need from less than 6 to more than 9 hours of sleep, but short sleepers and long sleepers appear to run in families. This study uses activity profiles and sleep recordings from humans, mice, and drosophila to identify a mutation in a transcriptional factor DEC2 that is associated with short sleep.