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Archive by tag | rodent

22 Mar 2012 | 20:09 GMT

Fear of the Light

Posted by Noah Gray | Categories: New in Nature, Noah Gray

   … Read more

It is commonly believed that distinct mini-networks of neurons, firing together, may be the means by which memories and other conceptual encoding requirements are handled in the brain. However, it is only recently that we have had the tools available to directly test the sufficiency of such a mechanism. Today, a new study in Nature from the lab of Susumu Tonegawa documents the ability to use light as a means to activate distinct subsets of neurons responsible for the encoding of fear memories.  Read more

Tags:

  • contextual fear
  • fear
  • fear learning
  • hippocampus
  • memory
  • Nature
  • neurons
  • neuroscience
  • optogenetics
  • rodent

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14 Mar 2012 | 21:40 GMT

Parietal decision sequences – and more of mice and monkeys

Posted by I-han Chou | Categories: I-han Chou, New in Nature

Image: Eduardo Dias-Ferreira and Rui Costa

Back in the 1990’s, one of the most intense battlegrounds in systems neuroscience was in monkey posterior parietal cortex. Labs competed to claim what a little strip of cortex called lateral intraparietal area (LIP) really does – decision, movement planning, attention, reward, or all of the above – mostly using single cell recording in behaving monkey. The experiments were (and still are) tough: standard operating procedure requires a well-trained monkey who will perform hundreds if not thousands of trials a day and then isolating neurons one at a time to find ones that respond during some interesting part of the trial. And then lots and lots of repetition so that you can average over many neurons. All things considered, it’s remarkable how much the field has been able to learn with this toolbox.  Read more

Tags:

  • decision
  • Nature
  • neural circuits
  • neuroscience
  • parietal cortex
  • primate
  • rodent

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About this blog

Action Potential is a forum operated by neuroscience editors at Nature for the entire neuroscience community. We'll discuss what's new and exciting in science, be it in our journals or elsewhere, as well as science policy and publishing and provide updates from major meetings. Although we provide the opportunity to comment as a service to the community, we do not endorse all viewpoints represented here. To contact the contributors directly with confidential questions or suggestions for future entries, please e-mail n.gray@us.nature.com.
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