Description:

The Department of Physiology welcomes Dr. Tianyi Mao with Oregon Health & Science University.

Abstract:

This talk will first focus on using whole brain imaging combined with novel computational algorithms to establish comprehensive connectomic maps at the mesoscopic scales (~300 µm) between the mouse cortex, thalamus, and striatum. Connections across these brain structures are essential for motor control, affective pain sensation, decision making, and reward. Novel structural principles governing the neuronal connectivity will be discussed. The second part of the talk aims to address how to utilize such comprehensive structural connectomic maps to further our understanding of circuit function. Utilizing the connectome we established, we uncovered circuit mechanisms of how opioid differentially modulate individual circuit components in the cortico-thalamo-striatal loop. Using a novel imaging modality that we recent developed, we obtained live imaging of intracellular signaling downstream of opioids in the aforementioned circuits and further identified the action sites for distinct opioid receptor families in cell type-specific and subregion-specific manner, which might shed light on how opioid’s effects on pain and reward are shaped by the relative selectivity of different opioid drugs to specific circuit components. This work highlights the necessity and importance of establishing whole brain wiring diagram, as illustrated by the application of using the thalamo-cortico-striatal wiring diagram to guide the understanding of circuit functions.