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13 Faculty Members and Their Research Laboratories

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13 Faculty Members and Their Research Laboratories NEUROSCIENCENEUROSCIENCE ATAT EPFLEPFL // BMIBMI BRAIN MIND INSTITUTE BLUE BRAIN PROJECT The BMI aims to explore brain function at multiple levels: genomics, gene The Blue Brain Project began in July 2005 as a collaboration Director: Pierre J. Magistretti Director: Henry Markram expression, protein expression and handling, biochemical and metabolic between Professor Henry Markram from the Brain Mind Institute dynamics, signaling pathways, molecular biophysics of ion channels and at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and receptors, synaptic transmission, plasticity and integration, neuronal and International Business Machines (IBM), aimed at modeling the glial composition of the brain and the micro-circuits that they form, whole neocortical column. The neocortical column represents the basic brain structural and functional circuitry, structure and functional dynamics of functional unit of the cerebral cortex in mammals that underlies sensory and motor systems, emergence of complex behavior, physical nearly all sensory and cognitive processing. These units are limits of perception, and the emergence of higher brain functions in repeated millions of times across the cortex, with the basic humans. The aim is also to study the dysfunctions of the brain focusing on structure remaining the same from the mouse to man. From its autism, schizophrenia and neurodegenerative disorders. In addition, an origins – IBM’s BlueGene/L supercomputer and 10 years of important dimension for the BMI is to merge areas of experimental work experimental data from Professor Markram’s laboratory and – with theory and modeling. The BMI has established links with Universities the project has grown to include an international multidisciplinary and Hospitals in the Lemanic area, particularly with psychiatry and team of experimentalists, modelers and computer scientists. neurology. Internationally the BMI aspires to network with laboratories across the USA, Europe and Japan. The BMI is also engaged in research alliances with local and international industries. 1313 FACULTYFACULTY MEMBERSMEMBERS ANDAND THEIRTHEIR RESEARCHRESEARCH LABORATORIESLABORATORIES Laboratory of Neurodegenerative Diseases (LEN) Laboratory of Psychophysics (LPSY) Laboratory of Neural Microcircuitry (LNMC) Head of lab : Patrick Aebischer Head of lab : Michael Herzog Head of lab : Henry Markram Description of research activities Description of research activities Description of research activities The main focus of our laboratory is to develop gene therapy approaches for Main topics of our research are: feature integration, contextual modulation, The laboratory adopts a multidisciplinary approach to the structure and the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, time course of information processing, and perceptual learning. In clinical function of the neocortex that is made of a repeating stereotypical microcircuit Alzheimer’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Our laboratory is also studies, deficits of visual information processing are investigated in of neurons. The goal of the laboratory has been to derive the blue print for this implicated in the development of new animal models based on virus-mediated schizophrenic patients. microcircuit. To study the different types of single neurons we employ whole- overexpression or silencing of genes involved in neurodegenerative diseases. cell patch clamp studies in neocortical slices to obtain the electrophysiological For both gene therapy and development of models viral vectors such as Methods profile of neurons to aspirate cytoplasm for single cell multiplex RT-PCR lentivirus and adeno-associated virus are produced and used in our Psychophysics, TMS EEG, Eye Tracking, and Mathematical Modeling. studies and to load the neurons with dyes to allow subsequent 3D anatomical laboratory. For therapeutic purposes the technique of genetically engineered computer reconstruction of each neuron. This approach enables us to derive encapsulated cells allowing the localized secretion of various proteins as well the electrophysiological behaviour, the anatomical structure, as well as the as drug-testing are also widely implemented. The functional effects are genetic basis of the anatomy and physiology of each type of cell. The characterized through the use of a wide variety of techniques including laboratory has also developed a multidisciplinary approach to studying behavioural assessment, in vivo imaging techniques, morphological analysis diseases such as Autism. We have developed an insult-based animal model and biochemical measurements. Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology & Functional Neuroproteomics of Autism (the Valproic acid animal model) and study the gene expression (LMNN) changes, protein expression, synaptic malfunctioning, circuit malfunctioning, Methods Head of lab : Hilal A. Lashuel whole brain malfunctioning and behavioural alterations. Molecular and cellular biology, viral vector design and production, macroencapsulation technique, immunohistology on cells and tissue sections, Description of research activities Methods stereotaxic brain and spinal cord injections, behavioural assessment of both Research efforts in our laboratory focus on understanding the role of protein DNA microarrays and qPCR, Western Blotting, immunohistochemical staining, mice and rats,imaging techniques, statistical analyses aggregation, more specifically amyloid fibril formation in the pathogenesis of single neuron patch-clamp, multi-neuron recording, multi-electrical array neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's disease Parkinson's disease stimulation, multi-unit recording in vivo, test battery for behavioural profiling of and Huntington disease. In particular we are working on defining the rats and mice. biochemical mechanism of amyloid fibril formation of two amyloidogenic proteins α-synuclein and amyloid-beta (Aβ) and how they contribute to each of About the Blue Brain Project Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience (LNCO) their respective diseases, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. Using By the end of 2007 a simulation-based research process has been developed Head of lab : Olaf Blanke multifaceted approaches that employ tools from chemistry biophysics structural to generate a cellular-level model of a 2-week-old rat somatosensory biology and molecular and cell biology our group is working to elucidate the neocortex based on extensive experimental data. The 10,000 Description of research activities structural basis of amyloid toxicity in neurodegenerative diseases. A detailed threedimensional model neurons were placed in the neocortical volume (550 We focus our investigations on the functional and neural mechanisms of body understanding of the mechanism of amyloid fibril formation and its relation to μm in diameter by 1,200 μm high) and arranged in 6 layers according to their perception corporeal awareness and self consciousness. Projects rely on the disease pathology should contribute to our understanding of the mechanism of morphological and electrical properties. The cells have model ion channels, investigation of healthy subjects as well as neurological patients (who suffer pathogenesis and the identification of therapeutic targets for treating and/or determined by gene expression data, distributed along their membrane from selective neurocognitive deficits and illusions) by combining preventing these devastating diseases. surfaces to reproduce the experimentally observed diversity of electrical firing psychophysical and cognitive paradigms with state of the art neuroimaging properties seen in cortical pyramidal cells and interneurons. Potential synaptic techniques such as intracranial EEG surface EEG fMRI and Virtual Reality. Methods locations between cells are identified through a touch detection process that Our interdisciplinary expertise - bridging cognitive neurology experimental chemistry, biophysics, structural biology, proteomics, molecular and cell biology. searches for axons and dendrites in proximity to each other. Functional epileptology intracranial electrophysiology experimental psychology and synapses are placed according to experimental observations of the probability neuroimaging - has recently been extended to engineering-based approaches of synaptic interactions between different cell types. The entire circuit, once to cognition building a virtual reality (VR) neuroimaging platform with a constructed, is run through a barrage of tests to calibrate the network circuitry portable 256 channel EEG system (VR-EEG). This VR-EEG platform allows according to experimental data. This includes systematic checks of the ion us to carry out cognitive experiments in highly realistic ecologically valid channels, electrical behavior of neurons, composition of the column, patterns environments that close the perception-action loop while the participants’ Laboratory of Functional Neurogenomics (LNGF) of connectivity and behavior of monosynaptic and polysynaptic pathways. The brain activity (and soon also of brain damaged neurological patients) is Head of lab : Ruth Luthi-Carter model network is then run through a series of test protocols evaluating its continually monitored. Next to studying the neural mechanisms of bodily self capacity for replicating network level phenomena. consciousness experimentally we expect this novel technological amalgam to Description of research activities also become a key research technique in the larger field of the cognitive A primary focus of our group is
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