Laboratory of Visual System

Head: Andrzej WRÓBEL

Staff: Marek Bekisz, Andrzej Foik (PhD student), Jan Kamiński (PhD student), Ewa Kublik, Syune Nersisyan (PhD student), Avelino Silva (PhD student), Joanna Smyda, Aleksander Sobolewski, Wioletta Waleszczyk, Anna Wieczorek (PhD student)

Research profile:

Our current research focuses on understanding the dynamic operations within sensory systems of behaving animals. Using electrophysiological recording techniques and neuroinformatic methods for data analysis we try to correlate the activation of specific neuronal networks with its behavioral context.

More information about Laboratory on the web page

Methods:

• in vitro intracellular recordings
• single neuron activity in the visual system
• local field recordings from behaving animals
• EEG correlates of cognitive processes in humans
• computational analysis of electrophysiological signals

Current research activities:

• electrophysiological correlates of visual attention in cats – temporal analysis (frequency, phase and amplitude envelope) of local field potentials recorded from different parts of cat thalamo-cortical system during behavioral task
• information processing in the rat somatosensory system – the role of primary and secondary somatosensory pathways in different behavioral situations; in vivo and in vitro electrophysiological investigations of synaptic properties and cellular connections within the cortico-thalamic loops of the somatosensory system
• the role of extrageniculate visual pathway in movement perception – electrophysiological and modeling investigations on the spatial and temporal properties of single unit receptive fields in the cat; coding of information in geniculate and extrageniculate visual pathways in the cat – electrophysiological and computational studies on temporal pattern of neuronal activity

Selected publications:

Kamiński J., Brzezicka A., Wróbel A. (2011) Short-term memory capacity (7 ± 2) predicted by theta to gamma cycle length ratio. Learning and Memory, 95: 19-23.

Sobolewski A., Świejkowski D.A., Wróbel A., Kublik E. (2011) The 5-12Hz oscillations in the barrel cortex of awake rats – Sustained attention during behavioral idling? Clinical Neurophysiology, 122: 483-489 (with figure on the cover of the issue).

Mochol G., Wójcik D. K., Wypych M., Wróbel A., Waleszczyk W.J. (2010) Variability of visual responses of superior colliculus neurons corresponds to their velocity preferences. Journal of Neuroscience, 30: 3199-3209.

Bekisz M., Garkun Y., Wabno J., Hess G., Wróbel A., Kossut M. (2010) Increased excitability of cortical neurons induced by asso- ciative learning – an ex vivo study. European Journal of Neuroscience, 32: 1715-1725.

Sobolewski A., Kublik E., Świejkowski D.A., Łęski S., Kamiński J.K., Wróbel A. (2010) Cross-trial correlation analysis of evoked potentials reveals arousal related attenuation of thalamocortical coupling. Journal of Computational Neuroscience, 29: 485-493