Saba N. Baskoylu

Abstract A prevailing view on postnatal brain development is that brain regions gradually acquire adult functions as they mature. The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) regulates reward learning, motivation, and behavioral inhibition, and undergoes a protracted postnatal maturation. During adolescence, reward-seeking behavior is heightened compared to adulthood - a developmental difference that may be driven by a hypoactive mPFC, with decreased top-down control of impulsive reward-seeking.

Abstract Aligning and annotating the heterogeneous cell types that make up complex cellular tissues remains a major challenge in the analysis of biomedical imaging data. Here, we present a series of deep neural networks that allow for automatic non-rigid registration and cell identification in the context of the nervous system of freely-moving C. elegans. A semi-supervised learning approach was used to train a C.

Abstract Programmed cell death is a common feature of animal development. During development of the C. elegans hermaphrodite, programmed cell death (PCD) removes 131 cells from stereotyped positions in the cell lineage, mostly in neuronal lineages. Blocking cell death results in supernumerary ″undead″ neurons. We find that undead neurons can be wired into circuits, can display activity, and can modify specific behaviors.