Em um dos estágios do processamento visual da mosca - a placa lobular, uma para cada hemisfério da cabeça da mosca - nós encontramos neurônios dedicados à detecção e processamento do auto-movimento. Um destes neurônios, chamado HI, detecta o movi-mento de trás para frente na horizontal e os dois neurônios de cada lado da cabeça interagem, melhorando a extração da informação sobre o estímulo gerado pelo ambiente. Neste trabalho nós apresentamos uma instalação experimental de registro simultâneo dos dois neurônios HI, discutimos as dificuldades associadas com este esforço e os dados preliminares obtidos. Os spikes gerados pelos neurônios HI são registrados extracelularmente com elétrodos de tungstênio, alimentam um head-stage, um pré-amplificador e um discriminador, todos dispositivos eletrônicos analógicos, para serem processados em um digital, a fim de registar os tempos de chegada dos spikes com precisão de microssegundos. O hardware analógico e o digital são controlados pelo software Linux RealTime, baseados em RTLinux. O sistema de aquisição dos spike- times possui três canais de entrada e um de saída: uma entrada para cada HI e um para sincronização e uma saída para o envio\' do estímulo com 16 bits de resolução, que consiste no movimento horizontal de uma tela fixa. Nós discutiremos as dificuldades encontradas durante os testes/eliminação dos erros do equipamento. Estas têm sua origem em ter que controlar o \"wetware\" biológico e no hard/software eletrônicos. / In one of the fiy\'s optical processing stages - the lobula plate, one for each hemisphere of he fly\'s head -, we find neurons dedicated to the detection and processing of self-¬motion. One of these neurons, called H1, detects horizontal back-to-front motion and the two neurons of each side of the head interact, improving the extraction of information about the stimulus generated by the environment. In this work we present an experimental setup to record simultaneously from the two H1 neurons, discuss the difficulties associated with this endeavour and preliminary data obtained. The spikes generated by the H1 neurons are picked up extracellularly with Tungsten electrodes, are feed via a head-stage, a preamplifier and a discriminator, all electronic analog devices, to be processed from here on digitally, in arder to register the spike arrival times with microsecond precision. The analog and the digital hardware, based on RTLinux, are controlled by Linux RealTime software. The spike-time acquisition system has three input and one output channel: one input for each H1 and one for sinchronization and one output for delivering the stimulus with 16 bits resolution, consisting of the horizontal positions of a rigidly moving picture. We discuss the difficulties encountered during the testing/debugging of the equipment. These have their origin both having to control the biological \"wetware\" and the electric hard/soft-ware.

Objects in a scene are likely to occlude other objects partially and are itself likely to be partially occluded. A central question, therefore, is how the visual system resolves the resulting surface correspondence problem by successfully determining which surfaces belong to which objects. To this end, a recently developed dynamic grouping methodology has determined whether pairs of adjacent surfaces are grouped (Hock & Nichols, 2012). The grouping of adjacent surfaces, which depends on their affinity state, is indicated by the direction of perceived motion across one surface when its luminance is perturbed. In the current stimuli, which consists of a horizontal surface partially occluded by a vertical bar, dynamic grouping also can occur for nonadjacent surfaces, providing they are linked in two-dimensions by a connecting surface. Results indicate that the dynamic grouping motion is stronger for amodal completion entailing the perceptual grouping of nonadjacent surfaces behind an occluder. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Desde as descobertas das propriedades dos campos receptivos dos neurônios corticais no córtex visual primário, sua organização tem sido estudada com o auxílio de diversos métodos como eletrofisiologia, imageamento cortical e neurociência computacional. Poucos modelos mostram-se capazes de apresentar dominância ocular e seletividade à orientação simultaneamente. Um modelo em larga escala do sistema visual primário de mamíferos foi construído usando o GENESIS 2.2. O modelo contém aproximadamente 10.000 neurônios biologicamente plausíveis em oito matrizes representando setores das duas retinas, duas lâminas do núcleo geniculado lateral dorsal e duas lâminas representando o córtex visual (cada lâmina composta por uma matriz de células excitatórias e uma matriz de células inibitórias). As propriedades fisiológicas e estruturais do modelo foram determinadas com base em dados experimentais do sistema visual primário de mamíferos. Os neurônios apresentaram respostas binoculares e seletividade à orientação em boa concordância com os resultados experimentais. Apesar de neurônios corticais terem mostrado grande heterogeneidade em seus níveis de seletividade, a latência da resposta manteve-se constante e em boa concordância com resultados experimentais. / Since the discovery of the receptive field properties of cortical neurons in the primary visual cortex, their organization has been studied with many methods ranging from electrophysiology and optical imaging to computational neuroscience. Few models have been capable of showing ocularity and orientation selectivity simultaneously. A large-scale computational model of the mammalian primary visual pathway was constructed using GENESIS 2.2. The model consists of ~10,000 biologically plausible neurons organized in eight arrays to represent sectors of two retinas, two laminae of the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus and two laminae of the visual cortex (each cortical lamina composed of a matrix of excitatory neurons and a matrix of inhibitory neurons). The physiological and architecture properties of the model were derived from experimental data for the mammalian primary visual pathway. Neurons have shown ocular and orientation selectivity dependent responses in good agreement with data. Though neurons in the cortex have shown markedly heterogeneity in the tuning responses, the latency of response was uniform and in good agreement with reported data.

Desde as descobertas das propriedades dos campos receptivos dos neurônios corticais no córtex visual primário, sua organização tem sido estudada com o auxílio de diversos métodos como eletrofisiologia, imageamento cortical e neurociência computacional. Poucos modelos mostram-se capazes de apresentar dominância ocular e seletividade à orientação simultaneamente. Um modelo em larga escala do sistema visual primário de mamíferos foi construído usando o GENESIS 2.2. O modelo contém aproximadamente 10.000 neurônios biologicamente plausíveis em oito matrizes representando setores das duas retinas, duas lâminas do núcleo geniculado lateral dorsal e duas lâminas representando o córtex visual (cada lâmina composta por uma matriz de células excitatórias e uma matriz de células inibitórias). As propriedades fisiológicas e estruturais do modelo foram determinadas com base em dados experimentais do sistema visual primário de mamíferos. Os neurônios apresentaram respostas binoculares e seletividade à orientação em boa concordância com os resultados experimentais. Apesar de neurônios corticais terem mostrado grande heterogeneidade em seus níveis de seletividade, a latência da resposta manteve-se constante e em boa concordância com resultados experimentais. / Since the discovery of the receptive field properties of cortical neurons in the primary visual cortex, their organization has been studied with many methods ranging from electrophysiology and optical imaging to computational neuroscience. Few models have been capable of showing ocularity and orientation selectivity simultaneously. A large-scale computational model of the mammalian primary visual pathway was constructed using GENESIS 2.2. The model consists of ~10,000 biologically plausible neurons organized in eight arrays to represent sectors of two retinas, two laminae of the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus and two laminae of the visual cortex (each cortical lamina composed of a matrix of excitatory neurons and a matrix of inhibitory neurons). The physiological and architecture properties of the model were derived from experimental data for the mammalian primary visual pathway. Neurons have shown ocular and orientation selectivity dependent responses in good agreement with data. Though neurons in the cortex have shown markedly heterogeneity in the tuning responses, the latency of response was uniform and in good agreement with reported data.

Como a informação sobre o ambiente natural é codificada na atividade neural do cérebro? Existe de fato um código neural que impera ao longo de todo processamento neural? Essas são algumas das grandes perguntas da Neurociência da atualidade. Assumindo que estratégias bem sucedidas são preservadas e reaproveitadas através da Evolução, buscamos explorar essas questões ao analisar a resposta extracelular do neurônio H1 do sistema visual da mosca a estímulos visuais com distribuições estatísticas de velocidades horizontais bem definidas. Utilizando uma abordagem de Sistemas Complexos, a análise de multifractalidade do código neural do H1 lança algumas luzes sobre uma estratégia de codificação fascinante, sustentando a idéia de que esse neurônio é capaz de falar diferentes linguagens, se ajustando de forma extremamente dinâmica e flexível à complexidade do estímulo visual (1), visando uma transmissão ótima de informação (2). / How is information about the natural environment coded in the brain neural activity? Is there really a neural code that reigns throughout the neural processing? These are some of the greatest questions of todays Neuroscience. Assuming that well succeeded strategies are preserved and reused through Evolution, we seek to explore these questions by analyzing the extracellular response of the blowfly visual system H1 neuron to certain visual stimuli with well known statistical distributions of horizontal velocities. Using a Complex Systems approach, the multifractality analysis of H1s neural code casts highlights in its fascinating coding strategy, supporting the idea that this neuron is capable of speaking different languages by adjusting itself to the complexity in visual stimuli in a very dynamical and flexible way (1), aiming at a optimal information transmission (2).

<p>The focus of this thesis is the life and death of adult retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). RGCs are neurons that convey visual information from the retina to higher centers in the brain. If the optic nerve is transected (ONT), adult RGCs die by a form of cell death called apoptosis, and a general hypothesis is that neurotrophic factors can support the survival of injured neurons.</p><p>With the intention to gain knowledge about systems that can be used to decrease RGC death after ONT, we have studied growth factor receptors belonging to the tyrosine kinase family of receptors (RTK), known to mediate important cell survival signals. We found that the RTK Ret and its coreceptor GFRα1 were expressed by RGCs, and to test the above-mentioned hypothesis, we intraocularly administered glial cell-line derived factor, which activates a Ret-GFRα1 complex, and found transiently mediated RGC survival after ONT. </p><p>To identify new, potential neurotrophic factor receptors expressed by RGCs, with the aim to improve RGC survival after ONT, we developed a method for the molecular analysis of acutely isolated RGCs. The method involves retrograde neuronal tracing, mechanical retinal layer-separation, and isolation of individual RGCs under UV-light for RT-PCR analysis. Using this method, in combination with degenerate PCR directed towards the tyrosine kinase domain, several RTKs were identified. Axl, Sky, VEGFR-2, VEGFR-3, CSF-1R, and PDGF-βR are expressed by adult RGCs, and considered to be receptors with potential neurotrophic activity. Other results have shown that RGCs may require depolarization or increase in intracellular cAMP levels in order to fully respond to exogenously added trophic factors. We found that melanocortin receptors (MCRs) were expressed by RGCs, and MCRs can mediate elevation of intracellular AMP. We observed that α-MSH induced neurite outgrowth from embryonic retinal cells, indicating that MCR ligands have direct effects on retinal cells. RTKs and their ligands may be involved in endogenous systems for neuronal repair within the visual system. BDNF, NT-3, FGF2, and HGFR all increased in the retina after ONT and may be a part of an activated system for neuronal repair locally within the retina. </p><p>Adult axotomized RGCs die by apoptosis, therefore we examined the regulation of apoptotic genes after ONT. Bim and Bax increased in the retina after ONT, and may promote death of axotomized RGCs, whereas the increase in Bcl-2 may contribute to limit RGC apoptosis after ONT. </p><p>All in all, this thesis provides insights into the expression and regulation of molecules involved in the death and survival of RGCs. The results have revealed a number of potential neurotrophic receptors expressed by RGCs, and both identified RTKs and MCRs will serve as new targets in therapeutic approaches aiming at counteraction of RGC death after injury.</p>

In the mammalian visual system, the lateral geniculate nucleus is commonly thought to act merely as a relay for the transmission of visual information from the retina to the visual cortex, a relay without significant elaboration in receptive field properties or signal strength. However, many morphological and electrophysiological observations are at odds with this view. In this paper, we will review the different anatomical pathways and biophysical mechanisms possibly implementing a selective gating of visual information flow from the retina to the visual cortex. We will argue that the lateral geniculate nucleus in mammals is one of the earliest sites where selective, visual attention operates and where general changes in neuronal excitability as a function of the behavioral states of the animal, for instance, sleep, paradoxical sleep, arousal, etc., occur.

Cell-cell and cell-environment interactions are controlled by a set of local rules that dictate cell behavior. With such local rules, emergence of computationally meaningful building blocks and hierarchies can be observed. For example, at the cellular level organization in the visual system, receptive field of a retinal ganglion cell displays an activation inhibition behavior that can be modeled as Mexican Hat wavelet or Difference of Gaussians. This precise organization is the product of a harmonious collaboration of different cell types located at the lower levels in a hierarchical structure for each ganglion cell. Moreover, a similar hierarchical organization is observed at higher levels in the visual system. This thesis investigates the visual system from several perspectives in an effort to explore the biological/computational principles underlying these local rules. The investigation results in a hybrid computer model that can combine the advantages of evolutionary and developmental principles to explore the effects of local rules on cellular differentiation, retinal mosaics, layered structures and network topology.

Our work on RGMb demonstrates a clear and new role in the developing chick visual system. RGMb is expressed in distinct areas of the developing visual system: retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) of the retina, which are the only cells in the visual system that extend axons to the brain, as well as newly differentiated neuronal cells within the optic tectum (OT), the primary target of RGC axons. Knockdown of RGMb in RGCs at embryonic day 2 (E2) resulted in aberrant axon projection at E17, indicating that RGMb is required for axon development. Furthermore, knockdown of RGMb in the optic tectum at E5 resulted in disrupted cellular migration at E9, demonstrating that RGMb is involved in correct cell migration. Lastly, we demonstrated that RGMb binds to the Fibronectin III (3,4) domain of Neogenin, which provides a basis for determining the mechanism through which RGMb exerts its biological effects.

Our work on RGMb demonstrates a clear and new role in the developing chick visual system. RGMb is expressed in distinct areas of the developing visual system: retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) of the retina, which are the only cells in the visual system that extend axons to the brain, as well as newly differentiated neuronal cells within the optic tectum (OT), the primary target of RGC axons. Knockdown of RGMb in RGCs at embryonic day 2 (E2) resulted in aberrant axon projection at E17, indicating that RGMb is required for axon development. Furthermore, knockdown of RGMb in the optic tectum at E5 resulted in disrupted cellular migration at E9, demonstrating that RGMb is involved in correct cell migration. Lastly, we demonstrated that RGMb binds to the Fibronectin III (3,4) domain of Neogenin, which provides a basis for determining the mechanism through which RGMb exerts its biological effects.