Detailseite
Projekt
Koordinationsfonds
Antragstellerin
Professorin Dr. Ileana L. Hanganu-Opatz
Fachliche Zuordnung
Molekulare Biologie und Physiologie von Nerven- und Gliazellen
Förderung
Förderung von 2016 bis 2021
Projektkennung
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 322093769
The mammalian brain accounts for complex sensory, motor, and cognitive abilities by processingenvironmental and internal information within neuronal networks. These dynamically assembledgroups of neurons organize the brain at different levels of spatial complexity ranging frommicrocircuits to large-scale networks. Their patterns of activity, such as oscillatory rhythms, create a precise temporal order within the brain by timing the neuronal firing. It is thought that the spatiotemporal orchestration of neuronal activity in neuronal networks is essential for generating defined behavioral outputs.A fundamental aim of systems neuroscience is to decipher the mechanisms by which sensoryperception and cognitive abilities are encoded onto activity patterns of single neurons and neuronal networks. However, experimental achievement of this aim has proven notoriously difficult and mostly descriptive and correlative evidences accumulated during the last decades. Thus, several crucial questions remain to be addressed: What is the contribution of single neurons or neuronal networks of different complexity to a specific behavior? What are the mechanisms by which neurons are recruited for assembling into networks that generate behaviorally relevant output?How does the activity of developing networks contribute to network refinement and maturation ofcognitive abilities? What is the behavioral impact of abnormal network activation?Until very recently, appropriate methods to monitor and selectively manipulate the activity of single or groups of neurons in behaving animals were lacking. The impressive development of newrecording and imaging techniques as well as of electrical nanostimulations and optogenetic toolsduring the last two-three years had a profound impact on neuroscience. Thus, time has now cometo bind experimental systems physiology with neurotechnology and analysis/modeling of networkdynamics in an interdisciplinary and seminal collaborative endeavor.
DFG-Verfahren
Schwerpunktprogramme
