Electrophysiological analysis of cortico-hippocampal interactions during memory consolidation.

Our lab has acquired hours-long tetrode recordings of the rat cortex and hippocampus for different behavioural tasks (Objects Space and Hexmaze) which we can analyse to shed light on the interaction between the cortex and the hippocampus during different memory conditions. We are interested in high frequency oscillations, neuronal firing activity and the activity of cell assemblies which are replayed during sleep.

Based on the intern’s interests and coding experience the internship can focus on three main types of analyses with the possibility of combining them. Examples of tasks that each analysis would require are given below. Due to the great variety of projects, we have multiple openings available.

• Analysis of sleep architecture.
  Computing the sequence and durations of sleep stages (Wake, NREM, REM, intermediate) as well as microarousals. Analyzing sleep stages’ transitions, sleep episodes and cycles. Another possibility is working on the automatic classification of sleep stages and human-like sleep stages from rat recordings during sleep and anesthesia.
• Analysis of Local Field Potential (LFP) signals.
  This analysis involves the detection of high frequency events in cortex and hippocampus, identification of their types, amounts, co-occurrence with other sleep oscillations as well as use of the Fieldtrip toolbox to describe their temporal and spectral characteristics and interactions.
• Analysis of spiking cells activities.
  Detection of spiking activity and sorting it into individual neurons. Analysis of individual and population firing rates. Identification of cell assemblies during behaviour and their replay during sleep. Synchronization of cell activity with video recordings during behaviour.

The analyses above can be performed in MATLAB and/or Python. We accept interns with different levels of experience writing scripts. Interns with little experience but high motivation are also encouraged to apply and can be considered for projects where they run previously written scripts while they increase their programming experience.

For more information and if you are interested on applying please send an email with a short description of your background to Dr. med Lisa Genzel: l.genzel@donders.ru.nl.

Relevant literature

• Aleman-Zapata A, Morris RGM, Genzel L. Fast and slow cortical high frequency oscillations for cortico-cortical and cortico-hippocampal network consolidation during NonREM sleep. bioRxiv 765149; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/765149
• Genzel L, Schut E, Schröder T, Eichler R, Khamassi M, Gomez A, Navarro Lobato I, Battaglia F. The object space task shows cumulative memory expression in both mice and rats. PLoS Biol. 2019 Jun 17;17(6):e3000322. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000322.

Website: https://www.genzellab.com/#/electrophysiology/

Contact Details
Dr. med Lisa Genzel
Assistant Professor
Donders Centre for Neuroscience
l.genzel@donders.ru.nl

Tagged as: BCI, Neuroscience