Publications by authors named "Daniel K Wojcik"

The precise localization of epileptic foci with the help of EEG or iEEG signals is still a clinical challenge with current methodology, especially if the foci are not close to individual electrodes. On the research side, dipole reconstruction for focus localization is a topic of recent and current developments. Relatively low numbers of recording electrodes cause ill-posed and ill-conditioned problems in the inversion of lead-field matrices to calculate the focus location.

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Being part of a social structure offers chances for social learning vital for survival and reproduction. Nevertheless, studying the neural mechanisms of social learning under laboratory conditions remains challenging. To investigate the impact of socially transmitted information about rewards on individual behavior, we used Eco-HAB, an automated system monitoring the voluntary behavior of group-housed mice under seminaturalistic conditions.

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In mammals, NMDA receptor antagonists have been linked to the emergence of high-frequency oscillations (HFO, 130-180 Hz) in cortical and subcortical brain regions. The extent to which transmission of this rhythm is dependent on feedforward (bottom-up) or feedback (top-down) mechanisms is unclear. Previously, we have shown that the olfactory bulb (OB), known to orchestrate oscillations in many brain regions, is an important node in the NMDA receptor-dependent HFO network.

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Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by three main motor symptoms: bradykinesia, rigidity and tremor. PD is also associated with diverse non-motor symptoms that may develop in parallel or precede motor dysfunctions, ranging from autonomic system dysfunctions and impaired sensory perception to cognitive deficits and depression. Here, we examine the role of the progressive loss of dopaminergic transmission in behaviors related to the non-motor symptoms of PD in a mouse model of the disease (the TIF-IA strain).

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Local Field Potential (LFP), despite its name, often reflects remote activity. Depending on the orientation and synchrony of their sources, both oscillations and more complex waves may passively spread in brain tissue over long distances and be falsely interpreted as local activity at such distant recording sites. Here we show that the whisker-evoked potentials in the thalamic nuclei are of local origin up to around 6 ms post stimulus, but the later (7-15 ms) wave is overshadowed by a negative component reaching from cortex.

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Interpretation of extracellular recordings can be challenging due to the long range of electric field. This challenge can be mitigated by estimating the current source density (CSD). Here we introduce kCSD-python, an open Python package implementing Kernel Current Source Density (kCSD) method and related tools to facilitate CSD analysis of experimental data and the interpretation of results.

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The Active Allothetic Place Avoidance task is an alternative setup to Morris Water Maze that allows studying spatial memory in a dynamic world in the presence of conflicting information. In this task, a rat, freely moving on a rotating circular arena, has to avoid a sector defined within the room frame where shocks are presented. While for Morris Water Maze several studies have identified animal strategies which specifically affect performance, there were no such studies for the Active Allothetic Place Avoidance task.

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Article Synopsis
  • The marmoset monkey is a key model for studying brain connections in Neuroscience, revealing complex interareal connectivity in the cerebral cortex.
  • The research shows that connection strengths vary widely and follow a log-normal distribution, indicating a dense and specific cortico-cortical network.
  • Findings suggest a hierarchical organization of connections that relates to the brain's microstructure, with parallel pathways for sensory systems and a consistent power-law relationship in network characteristics across different animal species.
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Extracellular recording is an accessible technique used in animals and humans to study the brain physiology and pathology. As the number of recording channels and their density grows it is natural to ask how much improvement the additional channels bring in and how we can optimally use the new capabilities for monitoring the brain. Here we show that for any given distribution of electrodes we can establish exactly what information about current sources in the brain can be recovered and what information is strictly unobservable.

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Wake-related ketamine-dependent high frequency oscillations (HFO) can be recorded in local field potentials (LFP) from cortical and subcortical regions in rodents. The mechanisms underlying their generation and occurrence in higher mammals are unclear. Unfortunately, anesthetic doses of pure ketamine attenuate HFO, which has precluded their investigation under anesthesia.

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This work presents and evaluates a 12-electrode intracranial electroencephalography system developed at the National Institute of Mental Health (Klecany, Czech Republic) in terms of an electrical source imaging (ESI) technique in rats. The electrode system was originally designed for translational research purposes. This study demonstrates that it is also possible to use this well-established system for ESI, and estimates its precision, accuracy, and limitations.

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There is great need for coordination around standards and best practices in neuroscience to support efforts to make neuroscience a data-centric discipline. Major brain initiatives launched around the world are poised to generate huge stores of neuroscience data. At the same time, neuroscience, like many domains in biomedicine, is confronting the issues of transparency, rigor, and reproducibility.

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The rapid adoption of marmosets in neuroscience has created a demand for three dimensional (3D) atlases of the brain of this species to facilitate data integration in a common reference space. We report on a new open access template of the marmoset cortex (the Nencki-Monash, or NM template), representing a morphological average of 20 brains of young adult individuals, obtained by 3D reconstructions generated from Nissl-stained serial sections. The method used to generate the template takes into account morphological features of the individual brains, as well as the borders of clearly defined cytoarchitectural areas.

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Changes in oscillatory activity are widely reported after subanesthetic ketamine, however their mechanisms of generation are unclear. Here, we tested the hypothesis that nasal respiration underlies the emergence of high-frequency oscillations (130-180 Hz, HFO) and behavioral activation after ketamine in freely moving rats. We found ketamine 20 mg/kg provoked "fast" theta sniffing in rodents which correlated with increased locomotor activity and HFO power in the OB.

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Understanding the principles of neuronal connectivity requires tools for efficient quantification and visualization of large datasets. The primate cortex is particularly challenging due to its complex mosaic of areas, which in many cases lack clear boundaries. Here, we introduce a resource that allows exploration of results of 143 retrograde tracer injections in the marmoset neocortex.

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Article Synopsis
  • Research until the late 20th century suggested sensory modalities in primates were independently processed, with cross-modal integration being limited to specialized areas.
  • Findings in macaques showed that the primary visual cortex (V1) has direct connections from auditory cortex, challenging this model.
  • In a study with marmosets, researchers confirmed similar direct projections from auditory areas to V1, highlighting early-stage audiovisual integration as a common trait in primate sensory processing.
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High-frequency neuronal population oscillations (HFO, 130-180 Hz) are robustly potentiated by subanesthetic doses of ketamine. This frequency band has been recorded in functionally and neuroanatomically diverse cortical and subcortical regions, notably ventral striatal areas. However, the locus of generation remains largely unknown.

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The gray short-tailed opossum (Monodelphis domestica) is a small marsupial gaining recognition as a laboratory animal in biomedical research. Despite numerous studies on opossum neuroanatomy, a consistent and comprehensive neuroanatomical reference for this species is still missing. Here we present the first three-dimensional, multimodal atlas of the Monodelphis opossum brain.

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Revealing the current source distribution along the neuronal membrane is a key step on the way to understanding neural computations; however, the experimental and theoretical tools to achieve sufficient spatiotemporal resolution for the estimation remain to be established. Here, we address this problem using extracellularly recorded potentials with arbitrarily distributed electrodes for a neuron of known morphology. We use simulations of models with varying complexity to validate the proposed method and to give recommendations for experimental applications.

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The EEG signal is generated by electrical brain cell activity, often described in terms of current dipoles. By applying EEG forward models we can compute the contribution from such dipoles to the electrical potential recorded by EEG electrodes. Forward models are key both for generating understanding and intuition about the neural origin of EEG signals as well as inverse modeling, i.

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A major challenge in experimental data analysis is the validation of analytical methods in a fully controlled scenario where the justification of the interpretation can be made directly and not just by plausibility. In some sciences, this could be a mathematical proof, yet biological systems usually do not satisfy assumptions of mathematical theorems. One solution is to use simulations of realistic models to generate ground truth data.

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Article Synopsis
  • The text includes a collection of research topics related to neural circuits, mental disorders, and computational models in neuroscience.
  • It features various studies examining the functional advantages of neural heterogeneity, propagation waves in the visual cortex, and dendritic mechanisms crucial for precise neuronal functioning.
  • The research covers a range of applications, from understanding complex brain rhythms to modeling auditory processing and investigating the effects of neural regulation on behavior.
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The marmoset is an emerging animal model for large-scale attempts to understand primate brain connectivity, but achieving this aim requires the development and validation of procedures for normalization and integration of results from many neuroanatomical experiments. Here we describe a computational pipeline for coregistration of retrograde tracing data on connections of cortical areas into a 3D marmoset brain template, generated from Nissl-stained sections. The procedure results in a series of spatial transformations that are applied to the coordinates of labeled neurons in the different cases, bringing them into common stereotaxic space.

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Laminar population analysis (LPA) is a method for analysis of electrical data recorded by linear multielectrodes passing through all lamina of cortex. Like principal components analysis (PCA) and independent components analysis (ICA), LPA offers a way to decompose the data into contributions from separate cortical populations. However, instead of using purely mathematical assumptions in the decomposition, LPA is based on physiological constraints, i.

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