Rainer Friedrich: Shaping olfactory memory by inhibition
| When |
Oct 30, 2019
from 12:15 PM to 01:15 PM |
|---|---|
| Where | Institute of Biology I, Hauptstraße 1, 79104 Freiburg, Lecture Hall, 1st Floor |
| Contact Name | Johann Bollmann |
| Add event to calendar |
vCal
iCal
|
Freiburg Neuroscience Lecture
Shaping olfactory memory by inhibition
Rainer Friedrich | Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, Basel
Abstract
We use the olfactory system as a model to analyze how relevant information is extracted from sensory inputs, how information is stored in memory circuits, and how sensory inputs inform behavior. We focus on the olfactory bulb and cortex of (adult) zebrafish and use a spectrum of methods including population imaging of neural activity, optogenetic manipulations, electrophysiology, behavioral training and EM-based circuit reconstruction. Recent studies include (1) a mechanistic analysis of neuronal computations in the olfactory bulb by the complete reconstruction of the wiring diagram of the larval zebrafish olfactory bulb after measuring neuronal activity patterns (“functional connectomics”), (2) the biophysical analysis of interactions between excitatory and inhibitory synaptic inputs to individual neurons in the zebrafish homolog of olfactory cortex, (3) an analysis of how associative conditioning modifies odor-to-valence mappings in a subregion of olfactory cortex, and (4) a study of behavioral and neural responses to unexpected sensory inputs in a virtual reality. In many of these studies we found that the specific organization of inhibitory interactions in distributed neuronal circuits is of key importance. The presentation will focus on one or two observations that highlight specific functions of patterned inhibition in neuronal computation.
More about the speaker and his research:
Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, Basel