Recent Work

The mission of the UCLA Mental Retardation Research Center is to elucidate the molecular, cellular and behavioral mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of developmental dysfunctions causing mental retardation and to translate this fundamental knowledge into novel diagnostic, preventive and therapeutic approaches which can be ultimately applied in clinical care. Because developmental dysfunctions are complex, five multidisciplinary research groups have been organized: Molecular and Developmental Neuroscience; Neurobiochemistry and Molecular Genetics; Systems Neuroscience; Sociobehavioral Research; and Clinical. The Center brings together sixty-two distinguished professors with an amazingly rich diversity of research expertise from Anthropology and Neuroscience to Molecular Biology and Genetics, and attracts talented graduate students and young investigators in a variety of disciplines related to its goals. A high priority is assigned to the support of pre- and post-doctoral fellows and the development of the careers of young investigators. The Center generates new research approaches and projects which will strengthen our ability to conduct multidisciplinary investigations on how developmental disorders arise, how they affect the nervous system, and how best we can develop innovative approaches to diagnosis and treatment of mental retardation and related developmental disabilities. At our web site listed above, we describe the activities of the Center in more detail, and profile the research of each faculty member.

Summary of recordings of spike trains available for analysis and guide to their context and means for their analysis

Woody, Charles D.

(2005)

This is a database of recordings of spike activity from about 5000 neurons along the auditory pathway from the cochlear nuclei to the neocortex, cerebellum, and elsewhere. Sufficient indexes and examples are available here to understand the data. The bulk of the data is on five CDs (0-4) that can be borrowed through interlibrary loan (UCLA Biomedical Library, WL102.5, W912r 2003) and copied. (See 04DataCDs.xls for that index.) There is also an analysis program that averages histograms of spike activity and concurrent electromyographic (EMG) activity obtained from the orbicularis oculi (eyeblink) and levator oris (nose twitch) muscles. This, too, is available here. Each recording contains the response to a 70 dB click (produced by applying a 1 ms rectangular pulse to a loudspeaker) before or after conditioning blink responses to the click as a CS. A discriminative acoustic stimulus, a 70 dB hiss DS, was also presented at a time apart from the click. There are guides to the regions from which each recording was made and to the associated behavioral states as well as a tutorial on how to use the analysis program. There is an appendix listing the data format. There is a second appendix (12. Appendix 2) with downloadable, self-executable data files of the complete database. To proceed please read the cited summary and guide. For copies of the original lab notebooks with depths of the recordings, see: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/index/techinfo/H90091.HTM

1 supplemental ZIP
88 supplemental files