I just had this idea of perfoming rewiring experiments on the nervous systems of living organisms to understand how connectivity affects function. Can you lesion out hub neurons but rewire to restore lost functionality?
I'm not sure how this could be done as I'm not an expert, but perhaps chemically, surgically? Have this type of experiments been done in the past.
Have you considered optogenetic tools to knock off rather than lesion?
Hi Gautam,
Thank you so much for your suggestion I employ optogenetics. I'm new to the field and it wasn't something that came to mind when asking the question and I was using the term "lesion" loosely, not tied to any particular technique for incapacitating a neuron.
However, my interests extend beyond lesioning studies. I'm interested in reconstructing a particular behavior in a neuronal network after the neuron that modulates that behavior is lesioned (and this behavior is known only to exist in the presence of this neuron) by modifying the organism's connectome. The objective is broadly to understand how changes to connectivity can create new behaviors.
If no technique exists for precise connectome modification (not modulation of synapse strengths, but actually growing new synaptic connections), I can foresee it being useful in its own rite. I'm wondering if something like this exists?
Dear Akiva,
Most of the studies that I am aware of have been done surgically or optogenetically in different sensory systems in vivo. You don't mention which animal model you would like to use, but a good place to start collecting information is the review in J. Neurosci that Nirmala attached.
Happy reading!
Jill
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