Neuronal network activity behind generation of movements
Navn på bevillingshaver
Rune Berg
Institution
University of Copenhagen
Beløb
DKK 2,000,000
År
2018
Bevillingstype
Research Infrastructure
Hvad?
Where does the movement of our body come from? Neurons in our nervous system produce commands to the muscle about when to contract. But how are these commands produced? And how are they orchestrated? In this research project we will measure the population activity of the neurons involved in the production of the neural programs responsible for movements.
Hvorfor?
Movements consists of coordination and orchestration of many different parts of the body into a concerted entity. This is accomplished by the interaction of many neurons, yet we do not know how. Furthermore, this is a central question in neuroscience: how does a single entity arise out of millions of cells? By addressing this question regarding generation of movement, not only do we achieve an important understanding of how the brain produces movement, we also get an understanding of how an emergent entity arises out of a large population of cells in general. This is a fundamental question in neuroscience.
Hvordan?
The project will unfold over the next 3-5 years. The first part will consist of an intense series of experiments primarily performed on rodents, while they walk or run. We will record the population activity in two ways, either with electrode arrays, or with optical imaging of the impulse activity. This is quite challenging, but we have already performed pilot experiments, that have proved possible. The second part consists of a comprehensive analysis of the acquired data, and this will be combined with development of models of the principles of network activity. There are two fundamentally different ways the activity can be generated. We will analyse both ways, in order to assess how it is performed in the nervous system.