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PhD Proposal Seminar – Yingtian He (Liu Lab)
July 5, 2021 @ 10:00 am - 10:30 am
The Functional Roles of Inhibitory Neuronal Populations in Brainstem Circuit Mediating Optokinetic Reflex
Abstract
The optokinetic reflex (OKR) response is an oculomotor behaviour that helps stabilize vision. It can be elicited in both horizontal and vertical direction. Horizontal OKR is driven by brainstem structures called the nucleus of optic tract and the dorsal terminal nucleus (NOT-DTN). NOT-DTN is abundant in inhibitory neurons, with about 30% of its neurons expressing GAD, a molecular marker for GABAergic inhibitory neurons36. However, what role these functionally different neurons have in OKR response is yet unknown. My preliminary data show that inhibitory neurons projecting to different downstream targets are different in their functional properties. This suggests they may encode different information and play different roles in regulating OKR response. Next, I will investigate how the inhibitory population affects NOT-DTN population activity and how it affects OKR response. Finally, I will study how different inhibitory populations affect the target of the innervated, and how these different populations affect behavioral output of OKR. This study will help us to understand the information encoded by different inhibitory populations in NOT-DTN, and the roles they play in regulating OKR response. Hopefully, these results can shine light on the function of inhibition in reflex regulation.
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Join Zoom Meeting
https://utoronto.zoom.us/j/87081276866
Meeting ID: 870 8127 6866
Host: Baohua Liu (baohua.liu@utoronto.ca)
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