Associative coupling in the neocortex
The overarching goal of our work is to understand the operating principles of the neocortex, a unique brain structure, which mainly evolved in mammals. There is clear evidence that the neocortex, in the broadest sense, endows the subject with cognitive capabilities. The big mystery is, how the vast diversity of neocortex-dependent behaviors are generated by a structure that shows nearly identical neural architecture across species (mouse, rat, monkey, human) and functional systems (sensory, motor, cognition)… more information
Cellular mechanisms of cerebellar nuclei neurons function
Project leader: Dr. Christine Pedroarena
The basic cerebellar circuit is highly conserved along phylogeny, particularly amongst mammals. On the other hand the large increase in cerebellar size along phylogeny suggests that larger numbers of the same modules provide an increased cerebellar capacity to support the increased complexity of brain functions and expansion of other brain areas. Therefore, the investigations of the basic modular cerebellar circuits carried out in rodents provide useful insights about the human cerebellar function (or dysfunction). The most recognized function of the cerebellum is sensorimotor coordination and its adaptation to environmental changes. This role is illustrated by the severe incoordination of movements and impaired capacity to learn new motor tasks in most forms of cerebellar disease. More recently, a possible role of cerebellum in cognitive functions has been proposed, an idea supported by the involvement of cerebellum in cognitive deficits syndromes, such as autistic disorders.
Our research is focused on the neurons of the deep cerebellar nuclei (DCN). The axons of these cells provide the output pathways of cerebellum and thus are the signals of these cells that ultimately exert the cerebellar control on target structures. Deep cerebellar nuclei neurons are spared in many cerebellar diseases or their function is altered only secondarily to the alterations occurring at the cerebellar cortex. Hence, cerebellar nuclei are a natural place for compensatory mechanisms for diseases affecting the cerebellar cortex. We investigate the cellular mechanisms (synaptic and membrane properties) determining cerebellar nuclei neurons output and its plastic changes and how these might be affected by cerebellar disease, or can be modulated by external agents, with the goal to ultimately understand cerebellar function and provide rational basis for new therapies.
To this end we use in vitro electrophysiological patch recordings and microstimulation combined with optogenetics in brain slices taken from wild type or transgenic animals and immuno-histochemistry staining techniques.
2019
Hofmann JI, Schwarz C, Rudolph U, Antkowiak B (2019) Effects of diazepam on low-frequency and high-frequency electrocortical ?-power mediated by ?1- and ?2-GABAA receptors. International Journal of Molecular Science 20:3486
2018
Chakrabarti S, Schwarz C (2018). Cortical modulation of sensory flow during active touch in the rat whisker system. Nature Communications 9:3907; DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-06200-6
Gerdjikov TV, Bergner CG, Schwarz C (2018). Global tactile coding in rat barrel cortex in the absence of local cues. Cerebral Cortex 28:2015-2027; doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhx108.
Oladazimi M, Brendel W, Schwarz C (2018). Biomechanical texture coding in rat whiskers. Scientific Reports 8:11139; doi:10.1038/s41598-018-29225-9.
Stüttgen MC, Schwarz C (2018). Barrel Cortex: What is it good for? Neuroscience 368:8-16; doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2017.05.009
Waiblinger C, Whitmire CJ, Sederberg A, Stanley GB, Schwarz C (2018). Primary tactile thalamus spiking reflects cognitive signals. Journal of Neuroscience 38:4870-4885.
2017
Stüttgen MC, Schwarz C (2017) Barrel Cortex: What Is It Good For? Neuroscience: doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2017.05.009 [Epub ahead of print]
Gerdjikov TV, Bergner CG, Schwarz C (2017) Global Coding in Rat Barrel Cortex in the Absence of Local Cues. Cerebral Cortex: doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhx108 [Epub ahead of print]
2016
Schwarz C (2016) The slip hypothesis: Tactile perception and its neuronal bases. Trends in Neurosciences 39(7): 449-462. doi: 10.1016/j.tins.2016.04.008.
2015
Chakrabarti S, Schwarz C (2015) The rodent vibrissal system as a model to study motor cortex function. In: Sensorimotor Integration in the Whisker System. Krieger P, Groh A (eds), Springer, New York, pp 129-148
Chakrabarti S, Schwarz S (2015) Whisking control by motor cortex. Journal of Scholarpedia 10(3):7466
Joachimsthaler B, Brugger D, Skodras A, Schwarz C (2015) Spine loss in primary somatosensory cortex during trace eyeblink conditioning Journal of Neuroscience 35:3772-3781
Schwarz C (2015) Monosynaptic retrograde tracing starts to close the gaps in our understanding of complex premotor networks (Commentary on Sreenivasan et al.). European Journal of Neuroscience 41:352-353
Smith JB, Watson GD, Alloway KD, Schwarz C, Chakrabarti S (2015) Corticofugal projection patterns across the whisker representations to the sensory trigeminal nuclei. Frontiers in Neural Circuits 9:53. doi: 10.3389/fncir.2015.00053. eCollection 2015.
Waiblinger C, Brugger D, Schwarz C (2015) Vibrotactile discrimination in the rat whisker system is based on neuronal coding of instantaneous kinematic cues. Cerebral Cortex 25:1093-1106
Waiblinger C, Brugger D, Whitmire CJ, Stanley GB, Schwarz C (2015) Support for the slip hypothesis from whisker-related tactile perception of rats in a noisy environment. Front Integr Neurosci 2015 Oct 15;9:53. doi: 10.3389/fnint.2015.00053.
2014
Chakrabarti, S., Schwarz, C. (2014) Studying motor cortex function using the rodent vibrissal system. e-Neuroforum 5:20-27. doi: 10.1007/s13295-014-0051-y
Georgieva, P., Brugger, D. and Schwarz, C. (2014) Are spatial frequency cues used for whisker-based active discrimination? Front.Behav.Neurosci. 8:379. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00379
2013
Feldmeyer, D., Brecht, M., Helmchen, F., Petersen, C.C.H., Poulet, J., Staiger, J., Luhmann, H., Schwarz C. (2013) Barrel cortex function. Progress in Neurobiology 103: 3–27
Gerdjikov T.V., Haiss F., Rodriguez-Sierra O., Schwarz C. (2013) Rhythmic whisking area (RW) in rat primary motor cortex: an internal monitor of movement-related signals? J Neurosci 33:14193–14204
Theis, L., Chagas, A.M. Arnstein, D., Schwarz, C., Bethge, M. (2013) Beyond GLMs: A generative mixture modeling approach to neural system identification. PLOS Comp. Biol., 9:e1003356. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003356
Chagas, A.M.; Theis, L., Sengupta, B., Stüttgen, M.C., Bethge, M., Schwarz, C. (2013) Functional analysis of ultra high information rates conveyed by rat vibrissal primary afferents. Front. Neural Circuits 7:190. doi: 10.3389/fncir.2013.00190
2012
Quadrato G, Benevento M, Alber S, Jacob C, Floriddia EM, Nguyen T, Elnaggar MY, Pedroarena CM, Molkentin JD and Di Giovanni S. (2012). Nuclear factor of activated T cells (NFATc4) is required for BDNF-dependent survival of adult-born neurons and spatial memory formation in the hippocampus. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 109:E1499-1508
2011
Pedroarena CM (2011) BK and Kv3.1 Potassium Channels Control Different Aspects of Deep Cerebellar Nuclear Neurons Action Potentials and Spiking Activity. Cerebellum. 2011 Jul 13. [Epub ahead of print]. DOI:10.1007/s12311-011-0279-9
Braun, C., Eisele, E, Wühle, A., Stüttgen, M., Schwarz, C., Demarchi G. (2011) Mislocalization of near-threshold tactile stimuli in humans: a central or peripheral phenomenon. Eur. J. Neurosci., 33:499-508
Brugger, D., Butovas, S., Bogdan, M., Schwarz, C. (2011) Real-time adaptive microstimulation increases reliability of electrically evoked cortical potentials. IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng., 58: 1483-1491
Stüttgen, M.C., Schwarz, C., Jäkel, F. (2011) Mapping spikes to sensations. Front.Neurosci. 5:125
2010
Belmeguenai A, Hosy E, Bengtsson F, Pedroarena C, Teuling CPE, He Q, Ohtsuki G, De Jeu MTG, Elgersma Y, De Zeeuw CI, Jörntel H, Hansel C (2010) Intrinsic plasticity complements LTP in parallel fiber input gain control in cerebellar Purkinje cells. J Neurosci 30(41):13630-13643
Schwarz, C. (2010) The fate of spontaneous synchronous rhythms on the cerebro-cerebellar loop. Cerebellum 9:77-87
Stüttgen M.C. and Schwarz C. (2010) Integration of vibrotactile signals for whisker-related perception in rats is governed by short time constants: comparison of neurometric and psychometric detection performance. J. Neurosci. 30:2060-2069.
Haiss, F., Butovas, S., Schwarz, C. (2010) A miniaturized chronic microelectrode drive for awake behaving head restrained mice and rats. J. Neurosci. Meth., 187:67-72
Gerdjikov, T.V., Bergner, C.G., Stüttgen, M.C., Waiblinger, C., Schwarz, C. (2010) Discrimination of vibrotactile stimuli in the rat whisker system - behavior and neurometrics. Neuron, 65:530-540
Butovas, S., Rudolph, U., Jurd, R., Schwarz, C., Antkowiak, B. (2010) Activity patterns in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus during and after awakening from etomidate anesthesia. Anesthesiology, 113:48-57
Schwarz, C., Hentschke, H., Butovas, S., Haiss, F., Stüttgen, M.C., Gerdjikov, T.V., Bergner, C.G. Waiblinger, C. (2010) The head-fixed behaving rat – procedures and pitfalls. Somatosensory & Motor Research, 27:131-48
Kreuzer, M., Hentschke, H., Antkowiak, B., Schwarz, C., Kochs, E.F., Schneider, G. (2010) Cross-Approximate Entropy of cortical local field potentials quantifies effects of anesthesia - a pilot study in rats. BMC Neuroscience, 11:122
Weitere Publikationen finden sie unter:
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4725-473X
Ongoing dissertation work
André Maia Chagas (GSNBS)
Supervisor Prof. Dr. C. Schwarz
Julian Hofmann (GSNBS)
Supervisor Prof. Dr. C. Schwarz
Maysam Oladazimi (GSNBS)
Supervisor Prof. Dr. C. Schwarz
Bingshuo Li (GSNBS)
Supervisor Prof. Dr. C. Schwarz / Prof. Dr. U. Ziemann
Completed dissertations (since 2000)
Christian Waiblinger (2015)
The role of kinematic events in whisker-related tactile perception
Prof. Dr. C. Schwarz
Petya Georgieva (2014)
Active perception of virtual texture frequency in the whisker-related sensorimotor system of the rat
Prof. Dr. C. Schwarz
Bettina Joachimsthaler (2014)
Two photon imaging of structural plasticity underlying classical eyeblink conditioning in mouse barrel cortex
Prof. Dr. C. Schwarz
Caroline Bergner (2012)
Neuronal correlates of frequency discrimination in the tactile system
Prof. Dr. C. Schwarz
Isabella Schmeh (2012)
Gene expression of potential modulators of inhibitory neurotransmission in the Lurcher mutant mouse
Prof. Dr. C. Schwarz
Dominik Brugger (2009)
Adaptive microstimulation for stabilizing evoked cortical potentials
Prof. Dr. C. Schwarz
Florent Haiss (2007)
Contributions of motor areas to sensory processing during active and passive touch
Prof. Dr. C. Schwarz
Maik Stüttgen (2007)
Psychophysical channels and the physiology of perception in the rat whisker system
Betreuer Prof. Dr. C. Schwarz
Sergejus Butovas (2007)
Local synaptic effects of microstimulation in barrel cortex and pontine nuclei in the rat
Prof. Dr. C. Schwarz
Susanne Kamphausen (2006)
Functional architecture of the cerebellar nuclei: Investigations of membrane physiology, morphology, and glycinergic synaptic transmission of cerebellar nuclei neurons
Prof. Dr. C. Schwarz
Anja Horowski (2002)
Organization of tectopontine axon terminals with respect to the projections from visual and somatosensory cortices and dendritic fields of pontine projection neurons: Compartmentalization of rat pontine nuclei
Prof. Dr. P. Thier, Prof. Dr. C. Schwarz
Uwe Czubayko (2000)
A characterization of neuronal types in rat cerebellar nuclei using electrophysiological and morphological properties
Prof. Dr. P. Thier, Prof. Dr. C. Schwarz
Center of Neurology
Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research
Department Cognitive Neurology
Otfried-Müller-Straße 25
72076 Tübingen
Phone: +49 (0)7071 29-80462
Fax: +49 (0)7071 29-25011
