We are constantly learning from our experiences as we engage with the world around us. During this active learning our senses work together to build an external reality, which is also influenced by our ongoing behaviours. A major challenge in modern neuroscience is to elucidate how sensory and behavioural systems integrate and influence each other across distributed brain networks. How does contextual sensory stimulation transform to behavioural output and how does our behavioural output subsequently feedback to affect fundamental sensory processing? A vital step in understanding the functional principles of these neural circuits is to directly observe the activity of local circuit elements with high temporal and spatial resolution during sensation and action. To do this, we use in vivo two-photon microscopy in combination with virtual environments to examine principles of cortical plasticity in sensory and association brain regions across different levels of task engagement in mice.
Organizer
Catarina de Sousa Osorio
c.osorio@erasmusmc.nl