Neurons, Networks, and Behavior: Advances in Neurophysiology

How does light energy falling on the back of our eye get interpreted as a particular image of our friend or a painting or a leaf? How does a cockroach escape imminent predation by a toad? How does a slug remember that a recent poke wasn’t dangerous? How do we remember? A rigorous consideration of general principles of neural integration at the cellular, sensory, central, and motor levels of organization will serve as the groundwork for an examination of such questions of integration. Then we will apply those principles to particular systems including: locust flight, cockroach escape,the role of giant fibers in crayfish behavior, memory and learning in invertebrates and vertebrates, and vertebrate visual systems (from light transduction in the retina through integration in the visual cortex). Students will read appropriate primary literature (both classical and contemporary) and conduct their own research projects.

Syllabus Spring 2014

 

Course Requirements

See how to read and facilitate

Online Neuro textbooks

Review prior to class

Illustrative systems we will study include

Evolution of the nervous system: Cnidarians and the evolutionary origin of the nervous system (2009)

Neuronal modeling primer (from Camhi)

  1. Cockroach escape
    1. The Escape Behavior of the Cockroach Periplaneta americana I. Turning Response to Wind Puffs (1978)
    2. The Escape Behavior of the Cockroach Periplaneta americana II. Detection of Natural Predators by Air Displacement (1978)
    3. Responses of Giant Interneurons of the Cockroach Periplaneta americana to Wind Puffs of Different Directions and Velocities (1977)
    4. Effect of Static Load on Motor Behavior of the Cockroach Periplaneta americana (2008)
    5. Cockroaches Keep Predators Guessing by Using Preferred Escape Trajectories (2008)
    6. Wasp uses venom cocktail to manipulate the behavior of its cockroach prey (2003)
      1. Video 1
      2. Video 2 - a more detailed explanation if you ignore the rampant anthropomorphizing
    7. A Wasp Manipulates Neuronal Activity in the Sub-Esophageal Ganglion to Decrease the Drive for Walking in Its Cockroach Prey (2010)
    8. Sensory Arsenal on the Stinger of the Parasitoid Jewel Wasp and Its Possible Role in Identifying Cockroach Brains (2014)
    9. Wasp Voodoo Rituals, Venom-Cocktails, and the Zombification of Cockroach Hosts (2014)
       
  2. Locust flight
    1. D. M. Wilson (1961) - classic paper-locust flight motor
      1. Draw a putative network diagram of the locust flight motor using the data from Wilson
      2. Locust flight handouts
      3. Video - simulation of locust flight - think about what the different colors mean
    2. Central control of locust flight (2006) sets Wilson's work in historical context
    3. A muscarinic cholinergic mechanism underlies activation of the central pattern generator for locust flight (2008)
      1. It will help you to make a table of the different putative neurotransmitters, agonists, and antagonists
      2. From Purves et al
         
  3. Crayfish command fibers
    1. Release of coordinated behavior in crayfish by single neurons (1966) - classic paper
    2. Coordination of Rhythmic Motor Activity by Gradients of Synaptic Strength in a Neural Circuit That Couples Modular Neural Oscillators (2009)

Review of motor commands: Fifty years of CPGs: two neuroethological papers that shaped the course of neuroscience (2010)

  1. Memory and learning in molluscs
    Nova video-learning and memory in Aplysia
    Sensitization in Aplysia-slide show from Neurosciences
    Aplysia handout
    1. The Molecular Biology of Memory Storage: A Dialogue Between Genes and Synapses (2001)
      LINK to PURVES et al
    2. Learning in Aplysia: looking at synaptic plasticity from both sides (2003)
    3. Activity-Dependent Presynaptic Facilitation and Hebbian LTP Are Both Required and Interact during Classical Conditioning in Aplysia (2003)
    4. The Biology of Memory: A Forty-Year Perspective - Kandel (2009)
    5. Habituation in Aplysia (2009)
    6. Small systems of neurons - Kandel early review (1979)
    7. Long-term facilitation in Aplysia (1988)
    8. Learning and individuality - Kandel and Hawkins (1992)
    9. The Octopus: A Model for a Comparative Analysis of the Evolution of Learning and Memory Mechanisms (2006)
    10. The Octopus Vertical Lobe Modulates Short-Term Learning Rate and Uses LTP to Acquire Long-Term Memory (2008)
       
  2. Memory and learning in mammals; LINK to PURVES et al
    1. Differing presynaptic contributions to LTP and associative learning in behaving mice (2009)
    2. Structural plasticity and memory (2004)
    3. Effects of enriched physical and social environments on motor performance, associative learning, and hippocampal neurogenesis in mice (2010)
    4. Synaptic plasticity and addiction (2007)
    5. Transition to addiction is associated with a persistent impairment in synaptic plasticity (2010)
           Supporting material
    6. Postmortem examination of patient H.M.'s brain (2014)
    7. Requirement of hippocampal neurogenesis for the behavioral effects of antidepressants (2003)
       
  3. Visual systems; Purves chapters 11, 12
    1. Strange vision: ganglion cells as circadian photoreceptors (2003)
    2. Frequency-dependent reduction of voltage-gated sodium current modulates retinal ganglion cell response (2011)
    3. Image-matching during ant navigation (2011)
    4. Desert ant navigation: how miniature brains solve complex tasks (2003)
    5. Active flight increases the gain of visual motion processing in Drosophila
    6. Patterning and Plasticity of the Cerebral Cortex (2005) - extraordinary study in which visual input is diverted to auditory cortex in neonatal ferrets
       
  4. Higher integrative CNS processes
    1. Dysfunction in the Neural Circuitry of Emotion Regulation—A Possible Prelude to Violence
    2. Orexin/hypocretin system modulates amygdala - dependent threat learning through the locus coeruleus (2013)
    3. Neural correlates of admiration and compassion
    4. The role of primordial emotions in the evolutionary origin of consciousness
    5. Social Cognition and the Evolution of Language: Constructing Cognitive Phylogenies (2010)
    6. A preliminary analysis of sleep-like states in the cuttlefish (2012)
    7. Syntactic processing in the human brain: What we know, what we don’t know, and a suggestion for how to proceed (2011)
    8. Functional specificity in the human brain: A window into the functional architecture of themind
    9. Separate Processing of Texture and Form in the Ventral Stream: Evidence from fMRI and 
    10. Visual Agnosia (2010)
    11. A critical review of the development of face recognition: Experience is less important than previously believed (2012)
    12. Perception of Face Parts and Face Configurations: An fMRI Study (2009)
    13. Obesity elicits interleukin 1-mediated deficits in hippocampal synaptic plasticity (2014)


The neurology of consciousness: cognitive neuroscience and neuropathology - By Steven Laureys, Giulio Tononi  - GOOGLE BOOKS

Cool Papers for Project Ideas