Three ways of looking at touch coding

At SfN, a block of three posters by myself, Simon Peron and Daniel O’Connor will showcase three ways to approach the problem of touch coding.

My work on whisker force measurements, and single cell and silicon probe based cortical recordings during active objection localization :

Program#/Poster#:	677.18/KK18
Presentation Title:	Encoding whisking-related variables in the mouse barrel cortex during object localization
Location:	Hall F-J
Presentation time:	Tuesday, Oct 16, 2012, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Authors:	*S. A. HIRES, D. O’CONNOR, D. GUTNISKY, K. SVOBODA; Janelia Farm Res. Campus, ASHBURN, VA

Simon Peron’s work on recording a complete representation of touch using in-vivo imaging with new G-CaMP variants during a similar behavior :

Program#/Poster#:	677.12/KK12
Presentation Title:	Towards imaging complete representations of whisker touch in the mouse barrel cortex
Location:	Hall F-J
Presentation time:	Tuesday, Oct 16, 2012, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Authors:	*S. P. PERON1, V. IYER2, Z. GUO2, T.-W. CHEN2, D. KIM2, D. HUBER3, K. SVOBODA2;

Daniel O’Connor’s work on constructing synthetic perception of touch and object localization via cortical cell-type specific optogenetic stimulation during behavior :

Program#/Poster#:	677.06/KK6
Presentation Title:	Neural coding for object location revealed using synthetic touch
Location:	Hall F-J
Presentation time:	Tuesday, Oct 16, 2012, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Authors:	*D. H. O’CONNOR1, S. A. HIRES1, Z. GUO1, Q.-Q. SUN2, D. HUBER1, K. SVOBODA1;

This is a must-see session for people interested in touch coding, the whisker system, in-vivo cortical imaging, or synthetic perception via optogenetics.

I hope to see you there.

Rapid warping of two-photon illumination wavefronts

A short paper in Optics Express looks interesting.  In A high speed wavefront determination method based on spatial frequency modulations for focusing light through random scattering media, Meng Cui presents a method for rapidly determining the optimal wavefront to ‘cancel out’ the scattering when 785nm light passes through turbid media.  In his example, a glass diffuser was used, but the clear goal for this work is to replace the glass with a brain.

To understand why this is so important for in vivo two-photon imaging, let’s review how 2-p imaging works. Light from a laser is focused to a point and swept across the field in a raster. The resulting fluorescence is of a different wavelength and can thus be filtered out from the excitation light. For each voxel, all the fluorescence that re-enters the objective is collected, regardless of its source.  The total amount of fluorescence collected for that timepoint in the sweep is assigned as the brightness of that voxel. Since the user knows where the laser was being aimed, scattering of fluorescence emission may reduce the brightness but will not blur the image.  However, scattering of the excitation light can dramatically reduce the excitation at the target voxel while increasing the off-target excitation of its neighbors. This causes a rapid increase in background fluorescence and blur at increasing brain depth.

The vasculature was labeled by injecting flourescein dextran into the circulatory stream. The light source was a regenerative amplifier. ‘‘0 mm’’ corresponds to the top of the brain. Left, XZ projection. Right, examples of XY projections. Note the increase in background fluo- rescence deeper than 600 mm in the brain due to out-of-focus 2PE. (Theer et al., 2003)

Previous reports work has shown that one can use adaptive optics to adjust the phase of the wavefront of the excitation light to correct for the scattering of the excitation.  However, determination of the optimal wavefront for a field of view took minutes, which could be problematic for imaging in an awake animal.  Any changes in the precise position of the brain might change the optimal wavefront.  Ideally, one would want a system that could optimize the wavefront every second, or even before every frame of acquisition (typically 4-8 Hz in a raster scan in vivo experiment)

Scattering in the brain warps two-photon excitation light, but adaptive optics can correct this.

I’ll let Meng Cui explain the technique in his own words

Elastic scattering is the dominant factor limiting the optical imaging depth in tissues. Take gray matter as an example, at 800 nm the scattering coefficient is 77 /cm and the absorption coefficient is 0.2 / cm. If there is a way to suppress scattering, the optical imaging depth could be greatly improved. Despite the apparent randomness, scattering is a deterministic process. A properly engineered wave can propagate inside scattering media and form a focus, a well understood phenomenon in the time reversal and optical phase conjugation (OPC) studies…

For applications on biological tissues, acquisition time on the order of one millisecond (ms) per degree of freedom is desired. Deformable mirrors can provide a high modulation speed. However the degrees of freedom are rather limited. A phase-only SLM can provide about one million degrees of freedom at a much lower modulation speed. In this work, I present a novel method, capable of providing as many degrees of freedom as a SLM with a data acquisition time of one ms per degree of freedom. The method was employed to focus light through a random scattering medium with a 400 ms total data acquisition time, ~three orders of magnitude faster than the previous report [25].

The essence of a COAT system is to phase modulate different input spatial modes while detecting the output signal from the target. To greatly improve the operation speed, the experiment requires a device that can provide fast phase modulation and can access a large number of spatial modes very quickly. To meet these two requirements, a pair of scanning Galvanometer mirrors was used to quickly visit different modes in the spatial frequency domain or k space, and a frequency shifted reference beam was provided for a heterodyne detection. The wavefront profile was first determined in k space and then transformed to the spatial domain. The spatial phase profile was displayed on a SLM to focus light onto the target. In such a design, the number of degrees of freedom is limited by the number of pixels on the SLM and the experiment speed is determined by the scanning mirror speed…

Compared to existing techniques, the reported method can provide both a high operation speed and a large number of degrees of freedom. In the current design, the operation speed is limited by the scanning mirror speed and the maximum number of degrees of freedom is limited by the SLM pixel number. In this demonstration, 400 spatial modes in k space were visited and the determined phase profile was displayed on the SLM. Depending on the scattering property of the media, more (up to 1920 x 1080) or less number of degrees of freedom can be used to optimize the focus quality and the operation speed.

Using a stepwise position scanning, the method achieves an operation speed of one ms (400 μs transition time + 600 μs recording time) per spatial mode, ~three orders of magnitude faster than the previous report. Using a continuous position scanning and a faster position scanner such as resonant scanning mirrors, polygon mirror scanners, or acousto-optic deflectors, the operation speed can be potentially increased by at least one order of magnitude. It is anticipated that the reported technique will find a broad range of applications in biomedical deep tissue imaging.

UPDATE : DIADEM Final Results

The DIADEM automated neuronal reconstruction contest has finished.  Accurate, fast, and high-resolution automated neuron reconstruction is of vital importance to cracking the mystery of how neural circuits perform. Even with perfect knowledge of the firing patterns of every cell in a circuit, our understanding of how these patterns are produced and how the information is processed would be quite limited.  True understanding requires knowledge of the precise wiring diagram.  This prize is a good first step towards bringing awareness of this tricky problem to the world’s best computer scientists.

$75,000 in prize money was to go to the group that was able to produce high-quality reconstructions of neuronal structures at least 20x faster than by-hand reconstructions.  In the finals, the fastest speed achieved was 10X the by-hand method. Some groups were hindered by slight variances in the source data formatting, which normally isn’t a big deal unless you only have 20 minutes to produce as much reconstruction as possible…

Since no group was able to beat the hard floor, but substantial progress was made, the money was distributed amongst these finalists.

Badrinath Roysam Team, $25,000
“for the better overall generality of their program in producing robust reconstructions by integration of human and machines interactions.”

Armen Stepanyants Team, $25,000
“for the better overall biological results in the spirit of pure automation.”

Eugene Myers Team, $15,000
“for the excellent quality and strength of their algorithm.”

German Gonzalez Team, $10,000
“for their deeper potential, more original approach, and ultimate scalability of their proposed solution.”

Deniz Erdogmus Team
“for elevating themselves above the current state of automated reconstructions…with a deep understanding of the technical and scientific problems.”

Congrats to the placing teams.

CNiFERS of Acetylcholine and Attention

“If you find yourself needing to reread this paragraph, perhaps it’s not that well written. Or it may be that you are low on acetylcholine.” Acetylcholine (ACh) is a major modulator of brain activity in vivo and its release strongly influences attention. If we could visualize when and where ACh is released, we could more fully understand the large trial to trial variance found in many in vivo recordings of spike activity, and perhaps correlate that to attentional and behavioral states mediated by ACh transmission.

Back in grad school, when I was desperately trying to figure out what biological question to answer with my GluSnFR glutamate sensor, I ended up in a meeting with Kleinfeld, his grad student Lee Schroder and Palmer Taylor. We plotted a strategy to make a FRET sensor for acetylcholine.  Palmer had recently solved crystal structures of an acetylcholine binding protein bound to agonists and antagonists.  Snails secrete this binding protein into their ACh synapses to modulate their potency.  The structures showed a conformational change upon agonist binding.  The hope was that by fusing CFP and YFP to the most translocated bits of the protein, they would be able to see an ACh dependent FRET change.  I was skeptical that it would work, as the translocation was much less than with calmodulin-M13 or periplasmic binding proteins used in Cameleon and GluSnFR, but thought was at least worth a shot.  FRET efficiency is highly dependent on dipole orientation, not just dipole distance, and you never know how a small conformational change might rearrange the FP dipoles…

Of course, the simple idea didn’t work.  Instead of giving up on the first dozen attempts, they kept plugging away at alternative strategies for measuring ACh release, and eventually succeeded.  In this Nature Neuroscience report, An in vivo biosensor for neurotransmitter release and in situ receptor activity, Nguyen et al demonstrate a mammalian cell based system for optically measuring ACh levels in an intact brain.  They coexpressed M1 muscarinic receptors with the genetically-encoded calcium indicator TN-XXL in HEK293 cells.  ACh binding to the M1 receptor induced IP₃-mediated calcium influx.  This calcium rise was then picked up by the TN-XXL and reported as a change in CFP/YFP fluorescence.  The crazy part is that they took this cell culture assay and implanted the cells into the brains of living rats!

The CNiFER in vivo experimental paradigm

In culture, the response was highly sensitive and monotonic (for phasic response section, EC₅₀ of 11 nM, a Hill coefficient of 1.9 and a maximum of ΔR/R = 1.1). In vivo, using two-photon imaging through a cortical window, they were able to see clear ACh responses in frontal cortex from electrical stimulation of the nucleus basalis magnocellularis, typically 200-μs current pulses of 200 μA @ 100Hz for 20-500ms.

This was essentially a in vivo proof of principal experiment, showing that one could image ACh release in spatially and temporally precise regions of the brain.  However, the imaging was done under urethane anesthesia, which is a much different brain state than an awake, behaving animal.  Are CNiFERs sensitive, powerful and stable enough to determine behavioral states via imaging in an awake animal?  Would expressing GCaMP3 (an indicator with greater fluorescence dynamic range) improve the performance of the CNiFER system? We used a very similar assay with ACh applied to HEK cells during the initial screens for better GCaMPs. Or, is the performance more limited by the properties of the M1 receptor and the adapting nature of IP3-mediated calcium dynamics?  CNiFERS provide an interesting platform for looking at ACh and potentially other G-protein mediated signaling, but it remains to be seen if labs that aren’t as technically proficient with two-photon rig will find it more useful than cyclic voltammetry for measuring acetylcholine levels.

Nature Neuroscience, 13 (1), 127-132 DOI: 10.1038/nn.2469
Nguyen, Q., Schroeder, L., Mank, M., Muller, A., Taylor, P., Griesbeck, O., & Kleinfeld, D. (2009). An in vivo biosensor for neurotransmitter release and in situ receptor activity

Adaptive Optics for In Vivo Microscopy

Imaging fluorescence in an intact, living brain is difficult due to absorption and scattering of excitation and emission light.  Two photon microscopy uses excitation light in the narrow optical window (700-950nm) where water and hemoglobin do not significantly absorb, which allows structure determination and functional imaging down to depths of ~600nm from the surface of the brain.  However, scattering of the excitation light still occurs at these wavelengths, which distorts the excitation volume and causes a rapidly increasing fluorescent background at greater depths.

The vasculature was labeled by injecting flourescein dextran into the circulatory stream. The light source was a regenerative amplifier. ‘‘0 mm’’ corresponds to the top of the brain. Left, XZ projection. Right, examples of XY projections. Note the increase in background fluo- rescence deeper than 600 mm in the brain due to out-of-focus 2PE. (Theer et al., 2003)

In order to reduce this background and sharpen the two-photon excitation volume, Ji et al in Adaptive optics via pupil segmentation for high-resolution imaging in biological tissues adapt tricks from astronomy (see also Rueckel et al 2006). Depending on where each ray of excitation light enters the brain, the angles of scattering are different.  By sequentially illuminating with spatially restricted subsections of full illumination beam, they see how the brain warps the light from each part of the beam.  Then they use a flexible mirror and to change the angle and phase of the excitation beam so that each part of the beam comes together in the same place and phase. Since two-photon fluorescence scales as the square of the intensity of the excitation light, this dramatically improves both the resolution and the signal to noise of the fluorescence image.

Scattering in the brain warps two-photon excitation light, but adaptive optics can correct this.

Pre-warping the excitation light to cancel the scattering improves fluorescence localization and intensity.

How well will this work in the brain of a living animal?  It’s not clear. Large differences in scattering paths across a field of view may dramatically slow the determination of optimal excitation beam warping and make it difficult to scan across a field of view quickly. Motion of the brain may change the pattern of scattering faster than the system can adapt.  Still, the use of adaptive optics is one of the few promising techniques for increasing penetration depth and signal in optical brain imaging (not counting sucking off the bits of the brain that are “in the way” of the excitation beam.) There are other optical tricks in astronomy that have not yet been mined for neuroscience applications.  Hopefully these will one day allow the functional imaging of all layers of the mammalian cortex, not just layer 2/3.

Three Cheers for GCaMP : Optogenetic Brain Reading

Three papers are out online in Nature Methods that show big improvements in calcium imaging with genetically encoded sensors.  They are are based on the fluorescence intensity indicator, GCaMP.   GCaMP, first developed by Junichi Nakai, consists of a GFP that has been circularly permuted so that the N and C termini are fused and new termini are made in the middle of the protein.  Fused to one terminus is calmodulin and the other is a peptide, M13, that calmodulin (CaM) binds to in the presence of calcium. The name is supposed to look like GFP with a CaM inserted into it, G-CaM-P.  Normally the GFP is dim, as there is a hole from the outside of its barrel into the chromophore.  Upon binding calcium, this hole is plugged and fluorescence increases.

The first paper, A genetically encoded reporter of synaptic activity in vivo, from Leon Lagnado’s group, targets GCaMP2 to the outer surface of synaptic vesicles. This localization allows the fluorescence signal to be confined to the presynaptic terminal, where calcium fluxes in response to action potentials are high.  This targeting improves the response magnitude of GCaMP2 and permits the optical recording of synaptic inputs into whatever region of the brain one looks at.  They demonstrate the technique in live zebrafish.

In the second paper, Optical interrogation of neural circuits in Caenorhabditis elegans, from Sharad Ramanathan’s group, GCaMP2 has been combined with Channelrhodopsin-2 to perform functional circuit mapping in the worm.   Since the worm’s structural wiring diagram has been essentially solved, functional data could say much about how “thick” the wires between each cell are.  Unfortunately, with GCaMP2, the responses are too slow and weak to distinguish direct from indirect connections.

Finally, we have published a paper, Imaging neural activity in worms, flies and mice with improved GCaMP calcium indicators, describing the improved GCaMP3.  This indicator has between 2-10x better signal to noise than GCaMP2, D3cpv and TN-XXL, depending on the system you are using.  It’s kinetics are faster and it is more photostable than FRET indicators, and the responses are huge.  When expressed in motor cortex of the mouse, neuronal activity is easily seen directly in the raw data.  Furthermore, the sensor can be expressed stably for months, making it a potential tool for observing how learning reshapes the patterns of activity in the cortex.

Imaging of mouse motor cortex (M1) expressing the genetically-encoded calcium indicator GCaMP3 through a cortical window. After 72 days of GCaMP3 expression, large fluorescence transients can be seen in many neurons that are highly correlated with mouse running.

GCaMP3 is not perfect. It cannot reliably detect single action potential in vivo in mammals, though I doubt that any existing GECI can. Work continues on future generations of GCaMP that may achieve 100% fidelity in optical reading of the bits in the brain. However, there is considerable evidence from a number of groups that have been beta-testing the sensor, including the Tank lab of “quake mouse” fame, that it is a significant leap forward and unlocks much of the fantastic and fantasized potential of genetically-encoded calcium indicators.

Comparison of fluorescence changes in response to trains of action potentials in acute cortical slices.

I will try to post a more complete writeup of GCaMP3 for Brain Windows soon, with an unbiased eye to its strengths and weaknesses.  We worked very hard to carefully characterize this sensor’s effects on cellular and circuit properties.  If you have any questions about GCaMP3, please post them to the comments.

For further info about strategies for GECI use and optimization, check out our previous paper, Reporting neural activity with genetically encoded calcium indicators in Brain Cell Biology.

The official press release from HHMI regarding GCaMP3 is available here.

Annual Reviews worth reading

Annual Reviews of Neuroscience published their 2009 issue recently.  These articles are usually a great way to catch up with a field, particularly when they are recently published.  Here are a few that might be of interest to the Brain Windows reader.

Synaptic Mechanisms for Plasticity in Neocortex

Daniel E. Feldman

Sensory experience and learning alter sensory representations in cerebral cortex. The synaptic mechanisms underlying sensory cortical plasticity have long been sought. Recent work indicates that long-term cortical plasticity is a complex, multicomponent process involving multiple synaptic and cellular mechanisms. Sensory use, disuse, and training drive long-term potentiation and depression (LTP and LTD), homeostatic synaptic plasticity and plasticity of intrinsic excitability, and structural changes including formation, removal, and morphological remodeling of cortical synapses and dendritic spines. Both excitatory and inhibitory circuits are strongly regulated by experience. This review summarizes these findings and proposes that these mechanisms map onto specific functional components of plasticity, which occur in common across the primary somatosensory, visual, and auditory cortices.

Using Diffusion Imaging to Study Human Connectional Anatomy

Heidi Johansen-Berg and Matthew F.S. Rushworth

Diffusion imaging can be used to estimate the routes taken by fiber pathways connecting different regions of the living brain. This approach has already supplied novel insights into in vivo human brain anatomy. For example, by detecting where connection patterns change, one can define anatomical borders between cortical regions or subcortical nuclei in the living human brain for the first time. Because diffusion tractography is a relatively new technique, however, it is important to assess its validity critically. We discuss the degree to which diffusion tractography meets the requirements of a technique to assess structural connectivity and how its results compare to those from the gold-standard tract tracing methods in nonhuman animals. We conclude that although tractography offers novel opportunities it also raises significant challenges to be addressed by further validation studies to define precisely the limitations and scope of this exciting new technique.

The Science of Neural Interface Systems

Nicholas G. Hatsopoulos and John P. Donoghue

The ultimate goal of neural interface research is to create links between the nervous system and the outside world either by stimulating or by recording from neural tissue to treat or assist people with sensory, motor, or other disabilities of neural function. Although electrical stimulation systems have already reached widespread clinical application, neural interfaces that record neural signals to decipher movement intentions are only now beginning to develop into clinically viable systems to help paralyzed people. We begin by reviewing state-of-the-art research and early-stage clinical recording systems and focus on systems that record single-unit action potentials. We then address the potential for neural interface research to enhance basic scientific understanding of brain function by offering unique insights in neural coding and representation, plasticity, brain-behavior relations, and the neurobiology of disease. Finally, we discuss technical and scientific challenges faced by these systems before they are widely adopted by severely motor-disabled patients.

Advances in Light Microscopy for Neuroscience

Brian A. Wilt, Laurie D. Burns, Eric Tatt Wei Ho, Kunal K. Ghosh, Eran A. Mukamel, and Mark J. Schnitzer

Since the work of Golgi and Cajal, light microscopy has remained a key tool for neuroscientists to observe cellular properties. Ongoing advances have enabled new experimental capabilities using light to inspect the nervous system across multiple spatial scales, including ultrastructural scales finer than the optical diffraction limit. Other progress permits functional imaging at faster speeds, at greater depths in brain tissue, and over larger tissue volumes than previously possible. Portable, miniaturized fluorescence microscopes now allow brain imaging in freely behaving mice. Complementary progress on animal preparations has enabled imaging in head-restrained behaving animals, as well as time-lapse microscopy studies in the brains of live subjects. Mouse genetic approaches permit mosaic and inducible fluorescence-labeling strategies, whereas intrinsic contrast mechanisms allow in vivo imaging of animals and humans without use of exogenous markers. This review surveys such advances and highlights emerging capabilities of particular interest to neuroscientists.

High-resolution deep-brain two-photon imaging

Mark Schnitzer, who recently became an HHMI Investigtor, has a new paper out on improved optics for his group’s miniature probe microscopes.  Mark has been pioneering these tiny probes to do optical imaging in deep brain structures, and is one of the only games in town if you want to look deeper then a millimeter into the brain without sucking off all the ‘irrelevant mush’ in between your microscope and the part of the brain you are interested in.  A beer-lubricated former Bell Labs employee (not Karel) years ago confided to me that he wasn’t too impressed with these microprobe systems,because “its just a GRIN lens on a stick”, ignoring the painstaking engineering and minaturization of motor, supports and light paths.  The limitations were quite significant though, in this new Nature Methods communication, In vivo fluorescence imaging with high-resolution microlenses, Barretto et al. note that “The best Rayleigh resolutions values achieved by two-photon fluorescence imaging with GRIN lenses are ~1.6 um lateral and ~12um axial, yielding highly elongated point spread functions that impede acquisions of high-quality, three-dimensional image stacks.”  That elongated point spread function really blurs the image and dramatically reduces the power and brightness of the two-photon imaging mode.  I assume this is why most of the data I’ve seen Mark present was with one-photon illumination.  Now, the authors have addressed this shortcoming.

 

Design of the lens system. The resolution is comparable to a standard 40x microscope objective.

 

 

      They coupled a plano-convex lens to a custom fabricated GRIN lens whose refractive properties were designed to compensate for the spherical aberration of the plano-convex lens. This system achieved near diffraction-limited resolution in both the lateral and axial dimensions.  Rather then the dim blur of previous iterations, the new system clearly resolves synaptic spines on the dendrites of fluorescent neurons buried deeply in the hippocampus of live mice. The example system in the paper has a 1mm diameter, while the previous systems were as narrow as 0.3mm, so there is still plenty of room for further miniaturization, although I’m not sure how that would affect the light gathering capacity of the lens. Importantly, Mark’s systems are finally getting commercialized so that a much larger scientific population can start to benefit from the technology soon. 

 

A hippocampal neuron (e) in a live mouse visualized with the new system (c) vs. the old system (d)

Journal Scan – Transynaptic tracing, fly olfaction, fast super-resolution, localization of perception

Here’s a group of four recent papers that are worth checking out but I don’t have the time to cover.  The first provides a set of tools for neuronal circuit tracing. The second pushes super-resolution imaging into fast, live-cell imaging.  The third, by a friend from graduate school, uses G-CaMP to make strong claims about olfactory coding in fruit flies. The last reports remarkable data pointing to the distributed nature of conscious perception in humans, which would have been a great data set to reference in my recent talk on free will.

Genetically timed, activity-sensor and rainbow transsynaptic viral tools 

We developed retrograde, transsynaptic pseudorabies viruses (PRVs) with genetically encoded activity sensors that optically report the activity of connected neurons among spatially intermingled neurons in the brain. Next we engineered PRVs to express two differentially colored fluorescent proteins in a time-shifted manner to define a time period early after infection to investigate neural activity. Finally we used multiple-colored PRVs to differentiate and dissect the complex architecture of brain regions.

Super-resolution video microscopy of live cells by structured illumination

Structured-illumination microscopy can double the resolution of the widefield fluorescence microscope but has previously been too slow for dynamic live imaging. Here we demonstrate a high-speed structured-illumination microscope that is capable of 100-nm resolution at frame rates up to 11 Hz for several hundred time points. We demonstrate the microscope by video imaging of tubulin and kinesin dynamics in living Drosophila melanogaster S2 cells in the total internal reflection mode.

Select Drosophila glomeruli mediate innate olfactory attraction and aversion.

Fruitflies show robust attraction to food odours, which usually excite several glomeruli. To understand how the representation of such odours leads to behaviour, we used genetic tools to dissect the contribution of each activated glomerulus. Apple cider vinegar triggers robust innate attraction at a relatively low concentration, which activates six glomeruli. By silencing individual glomeruli, here we show that the absence of activity in two glomeruli, DM1 and VA2, markedly reduces attraction. Conversely, when each of these two glomeruli was selectively activated, flies showed as robust an attraction to vinegar as wild-type flies. Notably, a higher concentration of vinegar excites an additional glomerulus and is less attractive to flies. We show that activation of the extra glomerulus is necessary and sufficient to mediate the behavioural switch. Together, these results indicate that individual glomeruli, rather than the entire pattern of active glomeruli, mediate innate behavioural output.

Movement Intention After Parietal Cortex Stimulation in Humans

Parietal and premotor cortex regions are serious contenders for bringing motor intentions and motor responses into awareness. We used electrical stimulation in seven patients undergoing awake brain surgery. Stimulating the right inferior parietal regions triggered a strong intention and desire to move the contralateral hand, arm, or foot, whereas stimulating the left inferior parietal region provoked the intention to move the lips and to talk. When stimulation intensity was increased in parietal areas, participants believed they had really performed these movements, although no electromyographic activity was detected. Stimulation of the premotor region triggered overt mouth and contralateral limb movements. Yet, patients firmly denied that they had moved. Conscious intention and motor awareness thus arise from increased parietal activity before movement execution.

Symposium : A Revolution in Fluorescence Imaging

This coming Tuesday and Wednesday (Feb 17th & 18th) at UCSD, there will be a symposium honoring Roger Tsien, featuring presentations from 32 former and current members of the Tsien Lab. The topics are quite diverse, concentrated in genetically-encoded indicators, but also featuring fluorescent cell penetrating peptides for cancer therapy, photophore ligases for imaging synaptic development, and even a radical new design for the internal combustion engine.

The quality of speakers and subjects looks to be outstanding.  Here is a complete schedule.  You may notice that at 11:15 AM on Tuesday in Price Center East Ballroom, I will be presenting recent progress we have made in the development of genetically-encoded calcium indicators and their application to in vivo imaging.  Don’t miss that one!  🙂  Roger’s talk, which will assuredly be equal parts absorbing, humorous, and illuminating, is at 4pm Wednesday in the Price Center Theater.

If you live in Southern California and are interesting in imaging technology, there isn’t a better place to be than this symposium.  If you can’t make it, Brain Windows will have a full write-up following the event.

Here is the un-official schedule.

Tuesday February 17th – Price Center East Ballroom

9:00 -9:05 Varda  Levram -Ellisman Opening

9:05-9:15 Palmer Taylor

Designing the next generation of genetically encoded sensors

9:15-9:30 Roger Heim

FRET for compound screening at Aurora/Vertex

9:30-9:45 Amy Palmer

Designing and using genetically encoded sensors: Lessons I learned from Roger

9:45-10:00 Robert Campbell

Beyond brightness: colony screens for fluorescent protein photo stability and biosensor FRET changes

10:00-10:15 Colette Dooley

GFP sensors for reactive oxygen species: Tying up loose ends and looking forward.

10:15-10:30 Peter Wang

Fluorescent Proteins and FRET biosensors for visualizing cell motility and mechanotransduction

Fluorescent proteins in neuroscience

11:00-11:15 Brian Bacskai

Aberrant calcium homeostasis in the Alzheimer mouse brain

11:15-11:30 Andrew Hires

Watching a mouse think: Novel fluorescent genetically-encoded calcium indicators applied to in vivo brain imaging

11:30-11:45 Alice Ting

Imaging synapse development with engineered photophore ligases

11:45-12:00 Rex Kerr

3D calcium imaging in C. elegans

Clinical applications

12:00-12:15 Todd Aguilera

Activatable Cell Penetrating Peptides for use in clinical contrast agent and therapeutic development

12:15-12:30 Quyen Nguyen

Surgery with Molecular Fluorescence Imaging Guidance

Fluorescent probes (Chemistry)

1:30-1:45 Tito Gonzalez

Voltage-Sensitive FRET Probes & Applications

1:45-2:00 Paul Negulescu

From watching ions to moving them

2:00-2:15 Timothy Dore

Roger-Inspired Photochemistry: Releasing Biological Effectors with 2PE

2:00-2:15 Joe Kao

Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Imaging in Living Animals

2:15-2:30 Brent Martin

Chemical probes for studying protein acylation

2:30-2:45 Jianghong Rao

Non-GFP based probes for imaging of the hydrolytic enzyme activity

Cellular research with and without Fluorescent probes

3:15-3:30 Carsten Schultz

Cell membrane repair visualized by GFP fusion proteins

3:30-3:45 David Green

Transcriptomes and Systems Biology: application to early mammalian embryogenesis

3:45-4:00 Clotilde Randriamampita

Paradoxical aspects of T cell activation revealed with fluorescent proteins

4:15-4:30 Wen-Hong Li

Studying dynamic cell-cell communication in vivo by Trojan-LAMP

4:30-4:45 Martin Poenie

Aim and Shoot: Two roles for dynein in T cell effector function

4:45-5:00 Gregor Zlokarnik

From bla to blah, blah in 20 years

5:00-5:15                        James Sharp

President, Zeiss MicroImaging Gmbh

February 18 2009 – Leichtag 107

Cellular research with and without fluorescent proteins

9:00-9:15 David Zacharias

Fluorescent Proteins, Palmitoylation and Cancer: two out of three ain’t bad

9:15-9:30 Jin Zhang

Visualization of Cell Signaling Dynamics: A Tale of MAPK

9:30-9:45 Paul Sammak

Nuclear organization and movement in pluripotent stem cells measured by Histone GFP H2B

Branching out

9:45-10:00 Yong Yao

NIH Toolbox Program

10:00-10:15 Oded Tour

The Tour Engine – A novel Internal Combustion Engine with the potential to boost efficiency and cut emissions

Into the future

10:45-11:00 Xiaokun Shu

Visibly and infrared fluorescent proteins: photophysics and engineering

11:00-11:15 Michael Lin

Engineering fluorescent proteins for visualizing newly synthesized proteins and improving FRET-based biosensors

11:15-11:30 Jeremy Babendure

Training our next generation of Fluorescent Protein Enthusiasts

Main Event – Price Center Theater

4:00-5:00 Roger Tsien

Chancellor invitational lecture 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry