Khodakhah, Kamran To understand brain function in health and disease one needs to elucidate how it processes sensory inputs, how it encodes information, and how it computes. Exploration of these facets requires tools which enable us eavesdrop on the activity of neurons in the intact brain, and tools for manipulating their function. A powerful approach has been in vivo single unit recordings from populations of neurons in awake animals during behavior. A group of neuroscientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM) seek the opportunity to expand their in vivo recording capabilities to include wireless telemetry in rodents and birds, and the ability to simultaneously monitor the activity of large populations of neurons in discrete brain regions. Moreover, the AECOM group wishes to attain the possibility of modulating the activity of discrete set of neurons by photorelease of bioactive neurotransmitters and neuromodulators. Acquisition of such a system will significantly advance the research programs of these neuroscientists and will enable, for the first time, this group to test hypotheses and address important questions that their respective fields have been longing to tackle.
