A single neuron in the visual cortex receives many thousands of synaptic inputs on its dendrites from other cortical neurons. The functions of these various synaptic inputs in sensory signal processing are unknown. We label single neurons in vivo such that the entire dendritic tree can be visualized and mapped functionally. We examine whether subsets of synapses on dendrites process different stimulus features in the environment. These synapses on cortical neurons may play an important role in experience dependent plasticity and the recovery of binocular vision after the initially detrimental effects of altered visual experience such as during amblyopia.
Amblyopia is a common cause of visual impairment in children where circuits within the brain favor the processing of visual stimuli from just one of the two eyes. This award will support research on structural and functional imaging of neurons in the visual cortex that may be affected by amblyopia.
| Levy, Manuel; Lu, Zhongyang; Dion, Grace et al. (2014) The shape of dendritic arbors in different functional domains of the cortical orientation map. J Neurosci 34:3231-6 |
| Shen, Zhiming; Lu, Zhongyang; Chhatbar, Pratik Y et al. (2012) An artery-specific fluorescent dye for studying neurovascular coupling. Nat Methods 9:273-6 |
| Levy, Manuel; Schramm, Adrien E; Kara, Prakash (2012) Strategies for mapping synaptic inputs on dendrites in vivo by combining two-photon microscopy, sharp intracellular recording, and pharmacology. Front Neural Circuits 6:101 |
| O'Herron, Philip; Shen, Zhiming; Lu, Zhongyang et al. (2012) Targeted labeling of neurons in a specific functional micro-domain of the neocortex by combining intrinsic signal and two-photon imaging. J Vis Exp :e50025 |
