This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. I give consent to this copy of my thesis, when deposited in the University Library...

We study a class of permutation-symmetric globally-coupled, phase oscillator networks on N -dimensional tori. We focus on the effects of symmetry and of the forms of the coupling functions, derived from underlying Hodgkin-Huxley type neuron models, on the existence, stability, and degeneracy of phase-locked solutions in which subgroups of oscillators share common phases. We also estimate domain...

The extensive knowledge about the significance and connexions of the amygdala with other brain regions emerged in the early XXth century (Gurdjian, 1928). Since then, the seven comprising nuclei of amygdala  corpus amygdaloideum in rats, have been known (Brodal 1947; Cowan et al., 1965). The presence and stereotaxic locations of all nuclei were confirmed later with more contemporary approaches...

Attention is a complex neurobiological process that involves rapidly and flexibly balancing sensory input and goal-directed predictions in response to environmental changes. The cholinergic and noradrenergic systems, which have been proposed to respond to expected and unexpected environmental uncertainty, respectively, play an important role in attention by differentially modulating activity in...

A5 noradrenergic neurons control sympathetic outflow, nociception, and respiration. The presence of α2-adrenergic receptors (α2-ARs) in A5 cells has been suggested by immunohistochemistry. In the present experiments, we analyze the response of spinally projecting A5 cells to α2-AR agonists, and we compare it with that of locus ceruleus (A6) neurons. Whole cell recordings were obtained from 52 s...