0000000000177585
AUTHOR
Dominik F. Aschauer
showing 4 related works from this author
A Basis Set of Elementary Operations Captures Recombination of Neocortical Cell Assemblies During Basal Conditions and Learning
2019
Cell assemblies — subgroups within neuronal networks — are believed to serve as functional entities underlying cognitive capabilities such as categorical perception or memory formation and storage. However, little is known about their long-term dynamics. Using chronic in vivo calcium imaging in the mouse auditory cortex, we find that cell assemblies undergo continuous recombination, even under behaviorally stable conditions. We identify a basis set of elementary operations capturing the dynamics of cell assemblies, which involve plasticity of both the stimulus tuning of particular assemblies as well as the cellular composition of an assembly. Auditory fear conditioning introduces biases in …
Discrete cortical representations and their stability in the presence of synaptic turnover
2015
Population imaging in mouse auditory cortex revealed clustering of neural responses to brief complex sounds: the activity of a local population typically falls close to one out of a small number of observed states [1]. These clusters appear to group sets of auditory stimuli into a discrete set of activity patterns and could thereby form the basis for representations of sound categories. However, to be useful for the brain, such representations should be robust against fluctuations in the underlying circuitry, which are significant even in the absences of any explicit learning paradigm [2]. Here we introduce a novel firing rate based circuit model of mouse auditory cortex to study the emerge…
Rapid nucleus-scale reorganization of chromatin in neurons enables transcriptional adaptation for memory consolidation
2020
AbstractThe interphase nucleus is functionally organized in active and repressed territories defining the transcriptional status of the cell. However, it remains poorly understood how the nuclear architecture of neurons adapts in response to behaviorally relevant stimuli that trigger fast alterations in gene expression patterns. Imaging of fluorescently tagged nucleosomes revealed that pharmacological manipulation of neuronal activity in vitro and auditory cued fear conditioning in vivo induce nucleus-scale restructuring of chromatin within minutes. Furthermore, the acquisition of auditory fear memory is impaired after infusion of a drug into auditory cortex which blocks chromatin reorganiz…
The Sensory Neocortex and Associative Memory
2016
Most behaviors in mammals are directly or indirectly guided by prior experience and therefore depend on the ability of our brains to form memories. The ability to form an association between an initially possibly neutral sensory stimulus and its behavioral relevance is essential for our ability to navigate in a changing environment. The formation of a memory is a complex process involving many areas of the brain. In this chapter we review classic and recent work that has shed light on the specific contribution of sensory cortical areas to the formation of associative memories. We discuss synaptic and circuit mechanisms that mediate plastic adaptations of functional properties in individual …