Cortical modulation of dorsal column nuclei: A computational study

Sánchez, Eduardo; Barro, Senén; Mariño, Jorge; Canedo, Antonio

doi:10.1007/s10827-006-7058-5

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 34 publications

(54 reference statements)

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“…In cats, motor cortical stimulation suppresses activity of 61% and facilitates 30% cuneate neurons, whereas the same stimulation inhibits 27% and excites 67% gracile neurons (Towe and Jabbur 1961). Based on intracellular recordings from neurons of DCN in vitro or in vivo , complex synaptic excitatory and inhibitory interactions occur in the same neuron as was activated by stimulation of dorsal column and corticofugal fibers (Nuñez and Buño 2001; Sánchez et al 2006). Apparently, corticofugal modulation secondarily evoked by cSCS on DCN neurons could be not be excluded from forming multiple response patterns to cSCS in the present study with cerebral intact preparation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modulation of neuronal activity in dorsal column nuclei by upper cervical spinal cord stimulation in rats

Qin

Yang

et al. 2009

Neuroscience

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Clinical human and animal studies show that upper cervical spinal cord stimulation (cSCS) has beneficial effects in treatment of some cerebral disorders, including those due to deficient cerebral circulation. However, the underlying mechanisms and neural pathways activated by cSCS using clinical parameters remain unclear. We have shown that a cSCS-induced increase in cerebral blood flow is mediated via rostral spinal dorsal column fibers implying that the dorsal column nuclei (DCNs) are involved. The aim of this study was to examine how cSCS modulated neuronal activity of DCNs.. A spring-loaded unipolar ball electrode was placed on the left dorsal column at cervical (C2) spinal cord in pentobarbital anesthetized, ventilated and paralyzed male rats. Stimulation with frequencies of 1, 10, 20, 50 Hz (0.2 ms, 10 s) and an intensity of 90% of motor threshold was applied. Extracellular potentials of single neurons in DCNs were recorded and examined for effects of cSCS. In total, 109 neurons in DCNs were isolated and tested for effects of cSCS. Out of these, 56 neurons were recorded from the cuneate nucleus and 53 from the gracile nucleus. Mechanical somatic stimuli altered activity of 87/109 (83.2%) examined neurons. Of the neurons receiving somatic input, 62 were classified as low-threshold and 25 as wide dynamic range. The cSCS at 1 Hz changed the activity of 96/109 (88.1%) of the neurons. Neuronal responses to cSCS exhibited multiple patterns of excitation and/or inhibition: excitation (E, n=21), inhibition (I, n=19), E-I (n=37), I-E (n=8) and E-I-E (n=11). Furthermore, cSCS with high-frequency (50 Hz) altered the activity of 92.7% (51/55) of tested neurons, including 30 E, 24 I, and 2 I-E responses to cSCS. These data suggested that cSCS significantly modulates neuronal activity in dorsal column nuclei. These nuclei might serve as a neural relay for cSCS-induced effects on cerebral dysfunction and diseases.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modulation of neuronal activity in dorsal column nuclei by upper cervical spinal cord stimulation in rats

Qin

Yang

et al. 2009

Neuroscience

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“…So far, very few works modelled the activity of primary afferents in monkeys [1], [2] and humans [3] and computational studies on second order cuneate neurone networks are lacking [4]. Also, to the best of our knowledge, no extensive investigation has been carried out on the transmission of neural signals through the multi-stage coding mechanisms from the periphery to central areas of the nervous system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Active tactile sensing in a neurorobotic Braille-reading system

Bologna

Pinoteau

Garrido

et al. 2012

2012 4th IEEE RAS &Amp; EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob)

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We present a neuro-inspired system for the investigation of fine dynamic haptic discrimination for neurorobotic and neuroprosthetic applications. A Braille reading task is adopted as case study. First, tactile inputs are encoded at the level of primary afferents mimicking human mechanoreceptors. Then, a network of simulated second-order neurones processes these primary signals prior to their transmission to a downstream classifier. The latter estimates the likelihood distribution of all Braille characters which is used to determine the letter being read. We also investigate how this distribution could be used to regulate the fingertip acceleration to maximise Braillereading performances. We employ the spiking neural network paradigm to model first-and second-order neural responses, and apply an information theoretical analysis to measure the neurotransmission reliability of the spiking patterns from peripheral to more "central" areas of the system.Our results show that the firing patterns of first-and secondorder responses convey enough information to achieve an offline perfect discrimination of the entire Braille alphabet as rapidly as 250 ms after the occurrence of the first spike. Furthermore, 89% of the scanned characters are correctly recognised during an online Braille reading task at constant velocity. Finally, we show that the class probability distributions obtained during reading, can be used to optimise the scanning velocity.

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Brain‐derived neurotrophic factor produced by human umbilical tissue‐derived cells is required for its effect on hippocampal dendritic differentiation

Alder

Kramer

Hoskin³

et al. 2012

Developmental Neurobiology

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The potential for nonembryonic cells to promote differentiation of neuronal cells has therapeutic implications for regeneration of neurons damaged by stroke or injury and avoids many ethical and safety concerns. The authors have assessed the capacity of human umbilical tissue-derived cells (hUTC) and human mesenchymal stromal cells (hMSC) to enhance differentiation of rodent hippocampal neurons. Co-culture of hippocampal cells with hUTC or hMSC in transwell inserts for 3 days resulted in increase of several dendritic parameters including the number and length of primary dendrites. The effect of hUTC or hMSC on dendritic maturation was only apparent on neurons grown for 2 weeks in vitro prior to co-culture. Changes in dendritic morphology in the presence of hUTC were also accompanied by increased expression of the presynaptic marker synaptotagmin and the postsynaptic marker postsynaptic density protein 95 kDa (PSD95) suggesting that there may also be an increase in the number of synapses formed in the presence of hUTC. The effect of hUTC and hMSC on hippocampal cells in co-culture was comparable to those induced by treatment with recombinant human brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) implying that a similar factor may be released from hUTC or hMSC. Analysis of hUTC-conditioned medium by ELISA demonstrated that BDNF was indeed secreted. An antibody that blocks the actions of BDNF partially inhibited the actions of hUTC on dendritic morphology suggesting that BDNF is at least one of the factors secreted from the cells to promote dendritic maturation. These results indicate that hUTC secrete biologically active BDNF, which can affect dendritic morphology.

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Cortical modulation of dorsal column nuclei: A computational study

Cited by 5 publications

References 34 publications

Modulation of neuronal activity in dorsal column nuclei by upper cervical spinal cord stimulation in rats

Modulation of neuronal activity in dorsal column nuclei by upper cervical spinal cord stimulation in rats

Active tactile sensing in a neurorobotic Braille-reading system

Brain‐derived neurotrophic factor produced by human umbilical tissue‐derived cells is required for its effect on hippocampal dendritic differentiation

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