Neuronal Processing

Information about the world around us is gathered by our sensory organs and relayed to the brain, where it is processed and integrated by large multimodal neuronal networks. Such stimulus-related network activity is thought to represent an organism's external world and underlie cognitive processing and the generation of motor output. Our major aim is to determine the ways in which synaptic potentials, oscillatory rhythms and plasticity interact to provide single cortical cells and networks of cells with the computational power that is required for processing the necessary information.

We use a multidisciplinary approach that combines genetic, electrophysiological, imaging and behavioural tools to examine the molecular basis of the integrative elements that are involved in processing at various levels of signalling pathway. By combining whole-cell recordings and imaging, both in vivo and in vitro, we are able to examine network properties - including synaptic transmission and dendritic integration - under physiologically relevant conditions. The spatiotemporal properties of stimulus-evoked activity determined from in vivo experiments are also: (i) used to direct in vitro studies that are designed to elucidate the precise mechanisms and implications of the spatiotemporal organization and (ii) incorporated into existing theoretical network models of stimulus representation and information processing in the mammalian cortex.