Project Details
Projekt
Imaging and manipulating neural circuits involved in visual motion processing underlying perception and visuomotor behaviour
Applicant
Takashi Sato, Ph.D.
Subject Area
Cognitive, Systems and Behavioural Neurobiology
Term
from 2013 to 2016
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 211740722
Takashi Sato proposes to use a combination of emerging optical and optogenetic techniques to identify specific contributions of different types of neurons and their respective input to the formation of sensorimotor decisions. As a newly recruited junior research group leader at the CIN, he will apply 2-photon imaging of Ca-signals expressed by single neurons and groups of neurons in the FEF in combination with the tracing of connections. Using these techniques, he will investigate distinct functional contributions of specific types of neurons with respect to visually guided saccades in marmoset monkeys as a suitable substrate of sensorimotor decisions. Furthermore, this group will examine the role of specific inputs to identified types of FEF cells by deactivating or activating these inputs by light, following the targeted expression of suitable light-activated channels. Unlike most other group members, he will primarily rely on marmosets, instead of rhesus monkeys, since the lissencencephalic brains of this new world species seems to be more amenable for the optogenetic methods. However, these methods are clearly not confined to the specific research question on the role of FEF in sensorimotor decisions. Rather, working on this specific question will help to establish and to refine this technology for its application in primates and to disseminate it to other groups, since these methods have so far been largely confined to studies of the rodent brain.
DFG Programme
Research Units
