Progressive Circuit Changes during Learning and Disease

Abstract

A critical step toward understanding cognition, learning, and brain dysfunction will be identification of the underlying cellular computations that occur in and across discrete brain areas, as well as how they are progressively altered by experience or disease. These computations will be revealed by targeted analyses of the neurons that perform these calculations, defined not only by their firing properties but also by their molecular identity and how they are wired within the local and broad-scale network of the brain. New studies that take advantage of sophisticated genetic tools for cell-type-specific identification and control are revealing how learning and neurological disorders initiate and successively change the properties of defined neural circuits. Understanding the temporal sequence of adaptive or pathological synaptic changes across multiple synapses within a network will shed light into how small-scale neural circuits contribute to higher cognitive functions during learning and disease.

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Volume of Surgical Freedom: The Most Applicable Anatomical Measurement for Surgical Assessment and 3-Dimensional Modeling

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“…The prevailing hypothesis is that post-stroke plasticity involves a process of circuit remapping in which neurons that survive the injury are somehow recruited to assume new responsibilities to take over the role of neurons that died (Carmichael, 2012; Murphy and Corbett, 2009; Xerri et al, 2014). Certainly, functional remapping occurs in the healthy developing brain during learning (Barth and Ray, 2019) and in response to changes in sensory experience (Hooks and Chen, 2020; Margolis et al, 2014). However, in the context of stroke, the available data on circuit plasticity has not yet provided irrefutable evidence for remapping of lost functionalities to new circuits.…”