Cell-specific brain imaging with viral vectors

Modern brain imaging methods have contributed enormously to contemporary knowledge about the particular brain systems involved in specific cognitive functions. Unfortunately, mechanistic insights have lagged behind, largely because brain mapping in humans lacks the spatial resolution required to study brain activity dynamically at the level of individual neurons and neuronal circuits. The aim of the present project is use state-of-the-art viral transfection technology to image brain function at the resolu tion of microcircuits, cell types and individual neurons in behaving animals during encoding and retrieval of memory. We shall use recently developed viral vectors for introducing molecular markers into specific cell types in the dentate gyrus and related parts of the hippocampal formation. The approach will allow us to determine the function of newborn granule cells in the dentate gyrus, and has the potential to contribute to the generation of new tools for revealing, in the future, the morphological ide ntity of grid cells, head-direction cells and conjunctive cells in the entorhinal cortex. Because viral transfection technology is likely to transform systems neuroscience radically, we shall use the proposed collaboration as a fundament for creating a wi der national network for viral vector-based cell-specific brain imaging in Norway.