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Spinal Cord Injuries and Brain Plasticity
Brain is a dynamic organ. It continuously adapts in response to changes in the external and internal environments. This property of the brain, called brain plasticity, facilitates recoveries from injuries to the brain, spinal cord or peripheral nerves. Our goal is to understand how organization of the somatosensory and the motor areas of the brain is affected by spinal cord injuries. This knowledge will help understand how ability of the brain to undergo reorganization can be used for better recoveries from injuries. Due to spinal cord injuries, sensory information from parts of the body below level to the lesion does not reach the brain. Neurons in the somatosensory cortex that no longer receive sensory inputs get reactivated by the remaining uninjured inputs. Such reorganization can facilitate behavioral recoveries and also affect perceptual abilities leading to phantom sensations. Our research is focused on determining the nature and extent of such reorganization, and the mechanisms that underlie such changes. We address these questions using in vivo models of partial spinal cord injuries. In addition to the electrophysiological studies are increasingly relying on fMRI experiments to understand how networks in the brain are affected by spinal cord injuries. We are also using human subjects for some of these studies. We are also interested in brain-machine interface devices to help patients with injuries. See Jain et al. 2008, Tandon et al. 2009, Kambi et al. 2014, Dutta et al. 2014; Thomas et al., 2020.
Organization and Plasticity of Rat Motor Cortex The rat primary motor cortex has two forelimb representations, the caudal forelimb area and the rostral forelimb area. We are interested in determining if there a complete second motor representation in rats. Primates and many other mammals have multiple motor areas to precisely control movement generation. Our electrophysiological and neuroanatomical experiments show that rats also have a second rostral whisker representation. Thus it is likely that rats have a second rostral motor area with functions that are likely an amalgamation of a classical higher motor area and the prefrontal areas. We are also interested in determining how rat motor cortex is affected by spinal cord injuries that cut the ascending dorsal columns and descending dorsal cortico-spinal tract. These experiments would help understand mechanisms of brain plasticity across different mammalian species. Information Processing for Tactile Inputs from the Hand We can recognize an object by touching it with our hands. How does the information from the receptors in the skin of different fingers obtained often by moving fingers over the object is put together to enable tactile perception. Using electrophysiological and neuroanatomical tools we are determining how information from disparate parts of the skin is aggregated in the brain to enable a coherent precept. See Lazar et al., 2020 |