Michigan State University - Research Groups

Support Agency:
NIH-NINDS: Repair, Plasticity and Neuroinformatics Program

PI:
Karim G. Oweiss, Ph.D.

This project seeks to improve our understanding the phenomenological aspects of neural plasticity that underlies our ability to learn, memorize or recover from injury. Specifically, we are interested in the neural mechanisms that underlie sensorimotor integration during associative and perceptual learning that guide motor behavior. These mechanisms are known to undergo significant changes during development, but more interestingly, during closed-loop brain machine interface experiments. We specifically focus on those mechanisms that can be assessed by analyzing the coordinated activity patterns of many, simultaneously observed, neurons.

Techniques: We use micro electrode arrays implanted in selected brain areas of awake behaving rodents to simultaneously record the spike trains of ensembles of neurons during task execution. We also use optogenetic techniques to activate/inactivate certain cell types to identify their role in the neural computations being performed at millisecond temporal resolution. We also develop new techniques for spike train analysis during long-term chronic recording experiments in awake behaving subjects to track the dynamics of neuronal connectivity and quantify the degree of plasticity in cortical circuits during learning and memory formation, or as a result of sensory deprivation or brain injury.