We have shown in the accompanying paper that optical imaging of macaque striate cortex reveals patches that are preferentially activated by equiluminant chromatic gratings compared with luminance gratings. These imaged color patches are highly correlated, although not always in one-to-one correspondence, with the cytochrome-oxidase (CO) blobs. In the present study, we have investigated the elec...

RATIONALE Proper patterning of the atrioventricular canal (AVC) is essential for delay of electrical impulses between atria and ventricles, and defects in AVC maturation can result in congenital heart disease. OBJECTIVE To determine the role of canonical Wnt signaling in the myocardium during AVC development. METHODS AND RESULTS We used a novel allele of β-catenin that preserves β-catenin's...

Introduction: Treatment of supraventricular arrhythmia includes wide range of medical interventions. Herbal remedies are suitable alternatives for synthetic drugs due to their availability, minimal side effects and lower price. Pharmacological studies and traditional medical literature point to the cardiovascular effects of the Artemisia absinthium L. from Compositae family of plants. Meth...

It is largely unknown how the properties of the auditory system relate to the properties of natural sounds. Here, we analyze representations of simulated neurons that have optimally sparse activity in response to spectrotemporal speech data. These representations share important properties with auditory neurons as determined in electrophysiological experiments.

The perirhinal cortex is located in a pivotal position to influence the flow of information into and out of the hippocampal formation. In this review, we examine the anatomical, physiological and functional properties of the rat perirhinal cortex. Firstly, we review the properties of the perirhinal cortex itself, we describe how it can be separated into two distinct subregions and consider how ...

The Drosophila antennal lobe (AL) has become an excellent model for studying early olfactory processing mechanisms. Local interneurons (LNs) connect a large number of glomeruli and are ideally positioned to increase computational capabilities of odor information processing in the AL. Although the neural circuit of the Drosophila AL has been intensively studied at both the input and the output l...

Wicher, Dieter, and Heinz Penzlin. Ca currents in central insect channels on the one hand (Dunlap et al. 1995) and highneurons: electrophysiological and pharmacological properties. J. voltage-activated (HVA) channels (L, N, P, and Q type) Neurophysiol. 77: 186–199, 1997. Ca currents in dorsal unpaired (Fox et al. 1987; Llinas et al. 1992; Randall et al. 1993) on median (DUM) neurons isolated fr...

As a step in exploring the functions of the inferior olive, we constructed a biophysical model of the olivary neurons to examine their unique electrophysiological properties. The model consists of two compartments to represent the known distribution of ionic currents across the cell membrane, as well as the dendritic location of the gap junctions and synaptic inputs. The somatic compartment inc...

Human adipose tissue-derived stem cells (hASCs) represent a potentially valuable cell source for clinical therapeutic applications. The present study was designed to investigate properties of ionic channel currents present in undifferentiated hASCs and their impact on hASCs proliferation. The functional ion channels in hASCs were analyzed by whole-cell patch-clamp recording and their mRNA expre...

In vitro generation of functional neurons from embryonic stem (ES) cells and induced pluripotent stem cells offers exciting opportunities for dissecting gene function, disease modelling, and therapeutic drug screening. To realize the potential of stem cells in these biomedical applications, a complete understanding of the cell models of interest is required. While rapid advances have been made ...