BME PhD Preliminary Exam Announcement for Michael Zimmerman (A. Chubykin and K. Jayant, co-advisors)

Everyone is invited to attend the public presentation beginning at 2:00 pm.

Title: Understanding Learning and Memory: The Role of Neural Oscillations

Committee:

- Dr. Alexander Chubykin (Primary advisor)

- Dr. Krishna Jayant (Co-advisor)

- Dr. Maria Dadarlat

- Dr. Edward Bartlett

Date, Time, & Location:

- Wednesday, May 10^th @ 2:00 pm in LILY G456

- Zoom: https://purdue-edu.zoom.us/j/91953591881

Abstract:

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is an extremely prevalent group of neurodevelopmental disorders that affects 2% of the population worldwide. Many of the symptoms of ASD emerge as difficulties with social communication or other comorbidities such as mood disorders and epilepsy. A hallmark of ASD is disruption of sensory processing and filtering that is associated with either hyper- or hyposensitivity which impacts social interaction, daily functioning, and learning and memory. Currently, the underlying mechanism causing this disruption has yet to be understood. Fragile X Syndrome (FX) is the most common monogenetic form of ASD, accounting for approximately 5% of all cases, and is a prime model for investigating this disruption. This work takes advantage of emerging novel technologies and paradigms to unravel an underlying mechanism behind learning and memory and its impairment in FX. I find that low frequency theta oscillations emerge following familiarity in both the primary visual cortex (V1) and hippocampus, which is known to encode memory, yet are primarily formed in V1. Additionally, with an active learning behavior paradigm, these oscillations are modified between stimuli and consistently weaker in FX mice, suggesting they encode more than just familiarity. Finally, I propose future work that will utilize optogenetic stimulation to further investigate the role of these oscillations, and potentially identify a future therapy for ASDs. Overall, this work is investigating the role of theta oscillations across the brain to understand their function in memory formation and encoding while also testing a potential therapeutic treatment for learning disability.