Cybernétique des microcircuits thalamiques et corticaux
Research center
Institution
Laboratory
Mots clefs
publications
See publications in Chercheurs/T. BAL
Gomes, J.-M., bedard, C., Valtcheva, S., Nelson, M., Khokhlova, V., Pouget, P., Venance, L., Bal, T., & Destexhe, A. (2016) Intracellular Impedance Measurements Reveal Non-ohmic Properties of the Extracellular Medium around Neurons. Biophysj, 110, 234–246.
Ouanounou, G., Baux, G., & Bal, T. (2016) A novel synaptic plasticity rule explains homeostasis of neuromuscular transmission.eLife, 5 : e12190
Behuret, S., Deleuze, C., & Bal, T. (2015). Corticothalamic Synaptic Noise as a Mechanism for Selective Attention in Thalamic Neurons. Front Neural Circuits, 9, 11633
Casale, A.E., Foust, A.J., Bal, T., & McCormick, D.A. (2015). Cortical Interneuron Subtypes Vary in Their Axonal Action Potential Properties. Journal of Neuroscience, 35, 15555–15567
Fields of research
Research Theme
Our team is specialized in electrophysiology in vitro. One of our main technological achievements is the development of a neuron-machine interface based on dynamic-clamp that allows the reconstruction of “hybrid circuits”, made of living neurons synaptically interacting with computer models. Current research interests include the modulation of sensory information processing in the thalamus and cortex by top-down background synaptic activity (in intra-UNIC collaboration with Alain Destexhe and Yves Frégnac’s teams). We recently implemented hybrid circuits reproducing the main features of the thalamic gate and explored the functional impact of various statistics of the cortical feedback. We found that the regulation of sensory information is critically determined by the statistical coherence of the cortical feedback. We also apply the technique to exploration of homeostatic plasticity at the neuromuscular synapse and its pathologies. We demonstrate for the first time the mechanisms of homeostasis at the neuromuscular synapse, and its control in real-time using the cell-computer interface (G. Ouanounou). We currently collaborate with D.A. McCormick (Yale university, USA) on unprecedented high-resolution voltage sensitive imaging of neurons, a recent methodology that allows recording of membrane potential from previously inaccessible portions of neurons.