![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/msop-neurobiology\/files\/2018\/11\/journal-club-oct2018-300x204.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The newly formed Koutsikou Lab had their first journal club this week. I presented the paper \u2018A simple decision to move in response to touch reveals basic sensory memory and mechanisms for variable response times\u2019 by Koutsikou et al. (2018) in The Journal of Physiology.<\/p>\n
The authors utilized behavioural, electrophysiological and modelling methodologies to study how somatosensory\u00a0<\/span>touch stimulation leads to the decision to swim or not to swim in hatchling\u00a0<\/span>Xenopus <\/i>tadpoles. The delay to swimming is long, variable and impossible to explain with the short latency and brief firing in sensory and sensory pathway neurones. Analysis of the excitation summating on hindbrain reticulospinal neurones that drive swimming in this aniaml, led to the proposal that unidentified presynaptic hindbrain neurones are able to prolong this excitation and the initiation of motor behaviour. This process resembles the accumulation of excitation proposed for cortical circuits in mammals during the formation of sensory \/ short-term working memory.<\/span><\/p>\n The work by Koutsikou and colleagues has set the premise for my PhD project and the so-called hindbrain extension neurones that prolong the delay to initiation of swimming will be my Holy Grail for the upcoming three years.<\/p>\n This week’s paper can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"