Barbara Hobo

Abstract Neurons in primary visual cortex are driven by feedforward visual inputs and top-down contextual inputs. The nature of this contextual information is difficult to study, as responses to feedforward and top-down inputs overlap in time and are difficult to disentangle experimentally. To address this issue, we measured responses to natural images and partially occluded versions of these images in the visual cortex of mice.

Terminal Schwann cells (TSCs) are specialized cells that envelop the motor nerve terminal, and play a role in the maintenance and regeneration of neuromuscular junctions (NMJs). The chemorepulsive protein semaphorin 3A (SEMA3A) is selectively up-regulated in TSCs on fast-fatigable muscle fibers following experimental denervation of the muscle (BotoxA-induced paralysis or crush injury to the sciatic nerve) or in the motor neuron disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).