Wednesday Colloquia

The Circuits of Sensation: How We Perceive the World

by Prof. Shubha Tole (TIFR Mumbai)

Wednesday, May 26, 2021 from to (Asia/Kolkata)
at Online through ZOOM Webinar ( Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/97963259354?pwd=ZFZsa2xqWGJSZW5pUjZPNkNqeGlEZz09 )
Meeting ID: 979 6325 9354 Pass code: 04072020
Description
The world outside is brought to our brains by our five senses. We experience the world by processing information brought to our brains via sensory devices; we remember and learn from our experiences; we execute actions based on them.  Proper functioning of this system requires that each brain structure is formed in its correct location during embryonic development, and that the growth of nerve connectivity to and from each structure is properly organized. This “setting up the hardware” is an engineering challenge that needs to be reliably executed in order to produce a functioning brain.  In this colloquium we will examine the regulatory processes by which brain structures and circuits are created using the mouse embryo as a model system.

In mice, the whiskers on the snout act as “fingers” to sense the environment, providing an ideal model system to examine how the circuitry underlying sensory resolution is created. We identified a central regulator of sensory circuit formation in the brain by examining a mutant mouse in which this circuitry is profoundly defective.  This same regulator, transcription factor Lhx2, also plays a fundamental role in designing the “blueprint” of where specific structures are to form in the brain.

I will present this work in a manner accessible to a wide non-specialist audience, and also bring out the approaches and techniques used to explore the early development of the brain.