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NJIT Mathematical Biology Seminar

Tuesday, November 21, 2006, 4:00pm
Cullimore Hall 611
New Jersey Institute of Technology

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Functional Roles of Excitation vs. Inhibition in a Neural Integrator

Emre Aksay

Department of Physiology and Biophysics
Cornell University, Weill Medical College

Neural integrators are thought to be important both in short-term memory tasks and decision making. Positive feedback among neurons is a prime candidate for the mechanism of integration. This feedback could be established either through recurrent excitation or mutual inhibition. This talk will review the evidence for feedback through such paths in an oculomotor integrator and present experiments that functionally dissect the role of each path. The talk will conclude with a new hypothesis for the mechanism of integration.