Role of intrinsic synaptic circuitry in collicular sensorimotor integration.

Exploring the superior colliculus in vitro.

The superior colliculus plays an important role in the translation of sensory signals that encode the location of objects in space into motor signals that encode vectors of the shifts in gaze direction called saccades. Since the late 1990s, our two laboratories have been applying whole cell patch-clamp techniques to in vitro slice preparations of rodent superior colliculus to analyze the struct...

Mixing modalities is more than meets the eye alone. Focus on: "Multisensory versus unisensory integration: contrasting modes in the superior colliculus".

The processes and mechanisms whereby individual neurons integrate and compute converging synaptic information from multiple sources remains as one of the more intriguing issues in experimental cellular and computational neuroscience. Nowhere are these issues more clearly relevant to understanding a tractable set of integrative neurophysiological and behavioral questions than in the realm of mul...

Sensorimotor integration in the moving spinal cord

1 A closed-loop approach to sensorimotor behaviors.................................p.9 1.1. Defining sensorimotor behaviors 1.1.1. Eliciting sensory input 1.1.2. Measuring motor output 1.2. Modulating sensorimotor behaviors 1.2.1. Sensory feedback 1.2.2. Neuromodulation 1.3. Modeling sensorimotor behaviors 1.3.1. Behavioral computations 1.3.2. Circuits computations 2 An open-loop access: sensor...

In Tribute: Farshid Mohammadi, PT, PhD, Proprioception and Sensorimotor Integration in Parkinson’s Disease

A molecular mechanism for the topographic alignment of convergent neural maps

Sensory processing requires proper alignment of neural maps throughout the brain. In the superficial layers of the superior colliculus of the midbrain, converging projections from retinal ganglion cells and neurons in visual cortex must be aligned to form a visuotopic map, but the basic mechanisms mediating this alignment remain elusive. In a new mouse model, ectopic expression of ephrin-A3 (Ef...