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It is known that the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which is important for emotion regulation, decision making and multisensory learning, develops late during adolescence. We investigate this process in mice and study whether social isolation impacts its correct development. We investigate the behavioral skills of the mice, the anatomy of their brain, and the interactions between different regions of the brain during multisensory learning and decision making.
The prefrontal cortex of the mammalian brain is essential for the regulation of psychological processes such as attention, multi-sensory learning, and impulsivity - so-called executive functions. Relative to other brain regions, the maturation of the prefrontal cortex is completed relatively late, specifically in late adolescence. Two important consequences of the above are that executive functions are typically less well-developed in children and adolescents compared with adults, and the prefrontal cortex and executive functions are susceptible to environmental challenges during development that can lead to neuropsychiatric disorders. To study and understand these processes in detail, human, animal, and modelling studies are essential.
In mice, we are assessing adolescence as a dynamic period in terms of multi-sensory learning in the visual and somatosensory domains. This period ends with the onset of adult levels of behavior. Reduced socialization during adolescence increases adolescence-specific behaviors.
Beyond establishing the behavioral paradigm, we established and applied a method for accurate detection and quantification of immunohistochemical images of synaptic puncta in 3D. We see an increase of glutamate synapses in the prefrontal cortex across adolescence. Using in vivo wide-field calcium imaging and silicon probe recordings, we are currently studying how visual and whisker-driven somatosensory stimuli are processed across the cortex and how they interact over development. Computational modelling with the generated data will further allow for improved understanding of the inter-dependence between development, prefrontal cortex, and multi-sensory learning.
In another set of experiments, we are using a combination of calcium imaging and optogenetic tools to investigate the interaction between the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the dorsal striatum (dStr), which is thought to be involved in action-selection. Mice are imaged while training a two-way active avoidance paradigm involving a task switch. We are investigating how sensory stimuli are represented in the dStr, how these representations are influences by inputs from the frontal regions and how representations are ultimately transformed into actions.
Principal investigators: Theofanis Karayannis, Benjamin Grewe, Christopher Pryce
PhD students: Sarah Wicki, Roy Missall, Philipp Eugster
