Perturbations Reveal that Degenerate Circuits Hide Cryptic Individual Variability

The Department of Neurobiology and Behavior will be hosting Eve Marder, professor of biology at Brandeis University, for a James L. McGaugh Distinguished Lecture.

Abstract:

More than 40 years of work on the crustacean stomatogastric nervous system on the cardiac sac, gastric mill, and pyloric rhythms have described numerous instances of circuit reconfiguration by neuromodulation and sensory inputs. These reconfigurations can involve alterations in the frequency and phases relationships of rhythms, and switching of neurons from participating in one circuit to another. Computational works shows clearly that there are multiple, degenerate sets of parameters that can result in similar output patterns. Motivated by this, we have studied the effects of several different perturbations on STG networks, revealing animal-to animal differences in their responses that are not evident without extreme perturbation