131 results match your criteria: "197 University Avenue[Affiliation]"
Glutamatergic signaling by midbrain dopaminergic neurons: recent insights from optogenetic, molecular and behavioral studies.
Curr Opin Neurobiol
June 2011
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University, 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
Although the notion that dopaminergic neurons utilize glutamate as a co-transmitter has long been supported by tantalizing molecular, immunocytochemical and electrophysiological evidence it has only been with the recent addition of optogenetic and other approaches that the existence and functional relevance of this mechanism could be unambiguously demonstrated. Here we discuss the possible mechanisms of action of glutamate released from mesoaccumbens dopaminergic neurons based on recently accumulated evidence. Surprisingly, rather then to confirm a role in conventional fast excitatory transmission, the latest evidence suggests that glutamate released from dopaminergic neurons may primarily act through different unconventional presynaptic and postsynaptic mechanisms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeural syntax: cell assemblies, synapsembles, and readers.
Neuron
November 2010
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
A widely discussed hypothesis in neuroscience is that transiently active ensembles of neurons, known as "cell assemblies," underlie numerous operations of the brain, from encoding memories to reasoning. However, the mechanisms responsible for the formation and disbanding of cell assemblies and temporal evolution of cell assembly sequences are not well understood. I introduce and review three interconnected topics, which could facilitate progress in defining cell assemblies, identifying their neuronal organization, and revealing causal relationships between assembly organization and behavior.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEffect of the adenosine A2A receptor antagonist MSX-3 on motivational disruptions of maternal behavior induced by dopamine antagonism in the early postpartum rat.
Psychopharmacology (Berl)
January 2011
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
Rationale: Mesolimbic dopamine (DA), particularly in the nucleus accumbens, importantly regulates activational aspects of maternal responsiveness. DA antagonism and accumbens DA depletions interfere with early postpartum maternal motivation by selectively affecting most forms of active maternal behaviors, while leaving nursing behavior relatively intact. Considerable evidence indicates that there is a functional interaction between DA D2 and adenosine A(2A) receptors in striatal areas, including the nucleus accumbens.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHow do neurons work together? Lessons from auditory cortex.
Hear Res
January 2011
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University, 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
Recordings of single neurons have yielded great insights into the way acoustic stimuli are represented in auditory cortex. However, any one neuron functions as part of a population whose combined activity underlies cortical information processing. Here we review some results obtained by recording simultaneously from auditory cortical populations and individual morphologically identified neurons, in urethane-anesthetized and unanesthetized passively listening rats.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMethods for predicting cortical UP and DOWN states from the phase of deep layer local field potentials.
J Comput Neurosci
August 2010
Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2AZ, UK.
During anesthesia, slow-wave sleep and quiet wakefulness, neuronal membrane potentials collectively switch between de- and hyperpolarized levels, the cortical UP and DOWN states. Previous studies have shown that these cortical UP/DOWN states affect the excitability of individual neurons in response to sensory stimuli, indicating that a significant amount of the trial-to-trial variability in neuronal responses can be attributed to ongoing fluctuations in network activity. However, as intracellular recordings are frequently not available, it is important to be able to estimate their occurrence purely from extracellular data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe medial preoptic area is necessary for motivated choice of pup- over cocaine-associated environments by early postpartum rats.
Neuroscience
May 2010
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102-1814, USA.
Converging evidence suggests that the motivation to seek cocaine during the postpartum period is significantly impacted by the competing incentives of offspring, a stimulus unique to this life stage. In the present study, the functional role of the medial preoptic area (mPOA), a critical site involved in maternal responsiveness, on processing incentive value of pup-associated cues and influencing response allocation for pup- over cocaine-associated environments was investigated using a concurrent pup/cocaine choice conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm. Early postpartum females with bilateral guide cannulae aimed into the mPOA or into anatomical control sites were conditioned, from postpartum days (PPD) 4 to 7, to associate different uniquely featured environments with pups or cocaine.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAssociations between the size of the amygdala in infancy and language abilities during the preschool years in normally developing children.
Neuroimage
February 2010
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 197 University Avenue, Newark, New Jersey 07102, USA.
Recently, structural MRI studies in children have been used to examine relations between brain volume and behavioral measures. However, most of these studies have been done in children older than 2 years of age. Obtaining volumetric measures in infants is considerably more difficult, as structures are less well defined and largely unmyelinated, making segmentation challenging.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPopulation coding of tone stimuli in auditory cortex: dynamic rate vector analysis.
Eur J Neurosci
November 2009
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University, 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
Neural representations of even temporally unstructured stimuli can show complex temporal dynamics. In many systems, neuronal population codes show 'progressive differentiation', whereby population responses to different stimuli grow further apart during a stimulus presentation. Here we analysed the response of auditory cortical populations in rats to extended tones.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe changing role of the medial preoptic area in the regulation of maternal behavior across the postpartum period: facilitation followed by inhibition.
Behav Brain Res
December 2009
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 197 University Avenue, Newark Campus, NJ 07102, USA.
Maternal behavior in rats undergoes considerable plasticity in parallel to the developmental stage of the pups, resulting in distinct patterns of maternal behavior and care at different postpartum time points. The medial preoptic area (mPOA) of the hypothalamus is one critical neural substrate underlying the onset and early expression of maternal behavior in rats but little is known about its specific functional role in the evolving expression of maternal behavior across the postpartum period. The present study uses a reversible local neural inactivation method to examine the role of the mPOA in the regulation of maternal behavior throughout the postpartum period, particularly extending into the late postpartum, a little examined period.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe relationship between saccadic suppression and perceptual stability.
Curr Biol
June 2009
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University, 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
Introspection makes it clear that we do not see the visual motion generated by our saccadic eye movements. We refer to the lack of awareness of the motion across the retina that is generated by a saccade as saccadic omission [1]: the visual stimulus generated by the saccade is omitted from our subjective awareness. In the laboratory, saccadic omission is often studied by investigating saccadic suppression, the reduction in visual sensitivity before and during a saccade (see Ross et al.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA neurocomputational model of classical conditioning phenomena: a putative role for the hippocampal region in associative learning.
Brain Res
June 2009
Memory Disorders Project and Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University-Newark, 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
Some existing models of hippocampal function simulate performance in classical conditioning tasks using the error backpropagation algorithm to guide learning (Gluck, M.A., and Myers, C.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA neurocomputational model of tonic and phasic dopamine in action selection: a comparison with cognitive deficits in Parkinson's disease.
Behav Brain Res
June 2009
Center for Neuroscience, Rutgers University, 197 University Avenue, Suite 209, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
The striatal dopamine signal has multiple facets; tonic level, phasic rise and fall, and variation of the phasic rise/fall depending on the expectation of reward/punishment. We have developed a network model of the striatal direct pathway using an ionic current level model of the medium spiny neuron that incorporates currents sensitive to changes in the tonic level of dopamine. The model neurons in the network learn action selection based on a novel set of mathematical rules that incorporate the phasic change in the dopamine signal.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEntrainment of neocortical neurons and gamma oscillations by the hippocampal theta rhythm.
Neuron
November 2008
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers, State University of New Jersey, 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
Although it has been tacitly assumed that the hippocampus exerts an influence on neocortical networks, the mechanisms of this process are not well understood. We examined whether and how hippocampal theta oscillations affect neocortical assembly patterns by recording populations of single cells and transient gamma oscillations in multiple cortical regions, including the somatosensory area and prefrontal cortex in behaving rats and mice. Laminar analysis of neocortical gamma bursts revealed multiple gamma oscillators of varying frequency and location, which were spatially confined and synchronized local groups of neurons.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEarly cognitive and language skills are linked to resting frontal gamma power across the first 3 years.
Behav Brain Res
December 2008
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
High-frequency cortical activity in humans and animals has been linked to a wide variety of higher cognitive processes. This research suggests that specific changes in neuronal synchrony occur during cognitive processing, distinguished by emergence of fast oscillations in the gamma frequency range. To determine whether the development of high-frequency brain oscillations can be related to the development of cognitive abilities, we studied the power spectra of resting EEG in children 16, 24 and 36 months of age.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInternally generated cell assembly sequences in the rat hippocampus.
Science
September 2008
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers, State University of New Jersey, 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
A long-standing conjecture in neuroscience is that aspects of cognition depend on the brain's ability to self-generate sequential neuronal activity. We found that reliably and continually changing cell assemblies in the rat hippocampus appeared not only during spatial navigation but also in the absence of changing environmental or body-derived inputs. During the delay period of a memory task, each moment in time was characterized by the activity of a particular assembly of neurons.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBehavior-dependent short-term assembly dynamics in the medial prefrontal cortex.
Nat Neurosci
July 2008
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 197 University Avenue, Newark, New Jersey 07102, USA.
Although short-term plasticity is believed to play a fundamental role in cortical computation, empirical evidence bearing on its role during behavior is scarce. Here we looked for the signature of short-term plasticity in the fine-timescale spiking relationships of a simultaneously recorded population of physiologically identified pyramidal cells and interneurons, in the medial prefrontal cortex of the rat, in a working memory task. On broader timescales, sequentially organized and transiently active neurons reliably differentiated between different trajectories of the rat in the maze.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIncentive salience of cocaine across the postpartum period of the female rat.
Psychopharmacology (Berl)
July 2008
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University, 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
Unlabelled: RATIONALE-OBJECTIVES: Our prior conditioned place preference (CPP) work demonstrates that late (day16) postpartum female rats consistently prefer cocaine- over pup-associated chambers, whereas far fewer early postpartum (day8) females prefer the cocaine-associated chamber. The present study examines early and late postpartum females' preference for a cocaine-associated chamber when contrasted with a chamber associated with saline (rather than pups).
Materials And Methods: Postpartum females were tested for conditioned preference for chambers associated with cocaine (10 mg/kg subcutaneous (SC) or 0.
Understanding language and cognitive deficits in very low birth weight children.
Dev Psychobiol
March 2008
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers The State University of New Jersey 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
Very-low-birth-weight infants are at much higher risk for cognitive and language delays but the nature of such deficits is not clearly understood. Given increasing rates of prematurity and infants born very-low-birth-weight, examination of mechanisms that underlie poorer developmental outcome is essential. We investigated language and cognitive abilities in very-low and normal birth-weight infants to determine whether performance differences were due to poorer global cognitive performance or to deficits in specific processing abilities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStability of the fittest: organizing learning through retroaxonal signals.
Trends Neurosci
March 2008
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University, 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
Classically, neurons communicate by anterograde conduction of action potentials. However, information can also pass backward along axons, a process that is essential during the development of the nervous system. Here we propose a role for such 'retroaxonal' signals in adult learning.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInteraction between neocortical and hippocampal networks via slow oscillations.
Thalamus Relat Syst
December 2005
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey 197 University Avenue, Newark, USA.
Both the thalamocortical and limbic systems generate a variety of brain state-dependent rhythms but the relationship between the oscillatory families is not well understood. Transfer of information across structures can be controlled by the offset oscillations. We suggest that slow oscillation of the neocortex, which was discovered by Mircea Steriade, temporally coordinates the self-organized oscillations in the neocortex, entorhinal cortex, subiculum and hippocampus.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFeedforward and feedback inhibition in neostriatal GABAergic spiny neurons.
Brain Res Rev
August 2008
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University, 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
There are two distinct inhibitory GABAergic circuits in the neostriatum. The feedforward circuit consists of a relatively small population of GABAergic interneurons that receives excitatory input from the neocortex and exerts monosynaptic inhibition onto striatal spiny projection neurons. The feedback circuit comprises the numerous spiny projection neurons and their interconnections via local axon collaterals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGamma oscillations dynamically couple hippocampal CA3 and CA1 regions during memory task performance.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
September 2007
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University, 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
The hippocampal formation is believed to be critical for the encoding, consolidation, and retrieval of episodic memories. Yet, how these processes are supported by the anatomically diverse hippocampal networks is still unknown. To examine this issue, we tested rats in a hippocampus-dependent delayed spatial alternation task on a modified T maze while simultaneously recording local field potentials from dendritic and somatic layers of the dentate gyrus, CA3, and CA1 regions by using high-density, 96-site silicon probes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThree-dimensional reconstruction of the axon arbor of a CA3 pyramidal cell recorded and filled in vivo.
Brain Struct Funct
July 2007
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
The three-dimensional intrahippocampal distribution of axon collaterals of an in vivo filled CA3c pyramidal cell was investigated. The neuron was filled with biocytin in an anesthetized rat and the collaterals were reconstructed with the aid of a NeuroLucida program from 48 coronal sections. The total length of the axon collaterals exceeded 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIncreasing the incentive salience of cocaine challenges preference for pup- over cocaine-associated stimuli during early postpartum: place preference and locomotor analyses in the lactating female rat.
Psychopharmacology (Berl)
October 2007
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University, 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
Rationale/objectives: Prior studies using a dual-choice conditioned place preference (CPP) procedure revealed that postpartum female rats (dams) strongly prefer chambers associated with pups over those associated with subcutaneously administered cocaine almost exclusively during early but not late postpartum (Mattson et al. 2001). The present study examines whether early postpartum dams retain strong pup-associated chamber preference when contrasted with a cocaine stimulus of greater incentive salience (intraperitoneal [IP] injections with brief conditioning sessions).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGABAergic control of substantia nigra dopaminergic neurons.
Prog Brain Res
September 2007
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University, 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
At least 70% of the afferents to substantia nigra dopaminergic neurons are GABAergic. The vast majority of these arise from the neostriatum, the external globus pallidus and the substantia nigra pars reticulata. Nigral dopaminergic neurons express both GABA(A) and GABA(B) receptors, and are inhibited by local application of GABA(A) or GABA(B) agonists in vivo and in vitro.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF