[NAB Seminiar] How does the brain detect mistakes and correct them? Cellular mechanisms of brain resilience.
Speaker
Carlos LoisLocation
Sage Room, Psych 1312Info
Brain function is remarkably reliable despite the imprecise performance of neurons, and the continuous perturbations caused by aging, disease or injury. How does the brain succeed in producing stereotypic behaviors over long periods of time despite these disruptions? We are studying the cellular mechanisms by which neuronal circuits are able to self-tune and adapt to perturbations. We are using genetic manipulations to investigate how brain circuits adapt when a large percentage of their neurons are deleted or silenced. In addition, we are using electrophysiological recordings to study how brain circuits detect mistakes in neuronal performance, and how they correct those mistakes. To study these questions we focus on two different brain circuits: (a) the mouse olfactory system, where we can genetically perturb selective neuronal types with high precision, and (b) the song circuits of birds, because song is an extremely stereotypical behavior that can be rigorously measured.
