Category: News

Our paper titled: “Targeted cortical reorganization using optogenetics in non-human primates” was published in eLife.
Brain stimulation modulates the excitability of neural circuits and drives neuroplasticity. While the local effects of stimulation have been an active area of investigation, the effects on large-scale networks remain largely unexplored. We studied stimulation-induced changes in network dynamics in two macaques. A large-scale optogenetic interface enabled simultaneous stimulation of excitatory neurons and electrocorticographic recording across primary somatosensory (S1) and motor (M1) cortex (Yazdan-Shahmorad et al., 2016). We tracked two measures of network connectivity, the network response to focal stimulation and the baseline coherence between pairs of electrodes; these were strongly correlated before stimulation. Within minutes, stimulation in S1 or M1 significantly strengthened the gross functional connectivity between these areas. At a finer scale, stimulation led to heterogeneous connectivity changes across the network. These changes reflected the correlations introduced by stimulation-evoked activity, consistent with Hebbian plasticity models. This work extends Hebbian plasticity models to large-scale circuits, with significant implications for stimulation-based neurorehabilitation.

Azadeh Yazdan-Shahmorad receives Interdisciplinary Rehabilitation Engineering Career Development award

In this article which was published by Lab Animal (a nature research journal), our lab and the optogenetics techniques we are using for neurorehabilitation are featured.

New faculty Andre Berndt, Amy Orsborn and Azadeh Yazdan-Shahmorad will create a complementary cluster of research expertise in the area of neuroengineering.