HEИндивидуална стипендия2022–2024

ZebraHipNetwork · Investigating the neural ensembles underlying the encoding of memory in zebrafish

„Хоризонт Европа“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2022-12-01 → 2024-11-30
Финансиране от ЕС: 226 751 €
Участници: 1
Схема: HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF

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Накратко на български

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Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

Investigating the neural ensembles underlying the encoding of memory in zebrafish

Learning and the formation of new memories is a fundamental mechanism that allows animals and human alike to adapt and survive in their respective environments. In mammals, the hippocampus is responsible for the formation of new memories. This structure is highly interconnected with other cortical and limbic brain regions forming multiple subnetworks within the mammalian brain. Given the overlapping nature of these subnetworks, we still do not fully understand how these inter-regional connections affect the formation of new memories. To investigate this, we would have to record the neural activity from the entire brain of an awake animal. But given the large size and complexity of the mammalian brain, this makes it extremely difficult to record the neural activity of the hippocampal network at a single-cell resolution in awake animals. Instead, other animal models, such as the semi-transparent zebrafish gives us the opportunity to record the neural activity of the entire telencephalon (thousands of cells) at a single-cell resolution. Unlike mammals, zebrafish do not have a properly defined cortex, however, many past studies have shown that its dorsal telencephalon (forebrain) contains many cortical-like structures including a hippocampal-like region, the dorsal lateral telencephalon (DL). The overall aim of this project was to investigate how does the network features of the zebrafish hippocampal analogue (DL) facilitates the encoding of new memories. To do so, I first examined the molecular and biophysical characteristics of the zebrafish DL neurons. Afterwards, to characterize the connectivity of the DL network, I have combined neuroanatomical tracing with electrophysiology to map the anatomical connections between the DL and its adjacent brain regions. More importantly, this allowed me to characterize the main inputs and outputs of the DL. Next, to understand how the zebrafish DL process sensory information prior to learning, I used two-photon calcium imaging to record the neural activity of populations of neurons while presenting the head-restrained fish with different sensory modalities. Finally, I then used a classical conditioning paradigm to investigate how learning affects the DL network. The results from this ZebraHipNetwork project will therefore allow us to unveil the key neural mechanisms underlying the formation of new memories that are conserved across species.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз

Цел на проекта

How animals respond to their environment largely depends on their past experiences. In fact, understanding how these subjective experiences are formed and how they influence behavior is one of the ultimate goals of neuroscience. However, how memories are established in the brain is still poorly understood in mammals and even less in primitive vertebrates. Although the formation of memory has been largely studied at the single-neuron level, more recent studies have shown that the establishment of memory traces necessitates the interactions between multiple brain regions including the cortex, amygdala and hippocampus. Yet, imaging across these vast brain areas is very challenging in mammals due the complexity and size of the mammalian brain. Since there are accumulating evidence illustrating that the hippocampus and amygdala are evolutionary conserved across vertebrates, here, I will use an optically transparent and genetically amenable vertebrate model that allows for brain-wide imaging of neural activity: the juvenile zebrafish. First, I will use electrophysiological and immunochemical methods to identify the major neuronal populations in the fish’s hippocampal homologue (WP1). Next, I will use a combination of electrophysiological recordings and whole-brain two-photon calcium imaging to investigate the connectivity architecture and synaptic organization of the neural ensembles of the hippocampal homologue in zebrafish brain explants (WP2). Finally, I will characterize what kind of information does the hippocampal homologue encode during learning and how does the brain-wide neural activity changes over the course of learning in behaving animals (WP3). Collectively, this project will identify, for the first time, key fundamental neural mechanisms that underlie memory formation across vertebrates and will provide a basis for future projects seeking to study complex neural computations in primitive species.

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

NORGES TEKNISK-NATURVITENSKAPELIGE UNIVERSITET NTNU · TrondheimКоординаторНорвегия