Biology subjects

Dinu F Albeanu

Publications and source records attributed to Dinu F Albeanu.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2016

An odor delivery system for arbitrary time-varying patterns of odors, mixtures and concentrations

Odor stimuli in the natural environment are intermittent and the concentration of any given odor fluctuates rapidly over time. Further, even in the simplest scenario, the olfactory sensors receive uncorrelated, intermittent inputs in the form of odor plumes arising from several odor sources in the local environment. However, typically used odor stimuli under laboratory settings are restricted to long-duration (~seconds), single pulse of one odor at a time that are rarely encountered in nature. This inadequate choice of odor stimuli is due to the dearth of affordable odor delivery systems that can generate plume-like, naturalistic stimuli with high reproducibility such as to allow for repeat measurements under laboratory conditions. We thus developed an odor delivery system that generates arbitrary time-varying patterns of individual odors and ternary mixtures at time scales of ~20 Hz. Here, we provide a detailed description of the construction and output characterization of our odor delivery system.

Neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2016

High-throughput mapping of single neuron projections by sequencing of barcoded RNA

Neurons transmit information to distant brain regions via long-range axonal projections. In the mouse, area-to-area connections have only been systematically mapped using bulk labeling techniques, which obscure the diverse projections of intermingled single neurons. Here we describe MAPseq (Multiplexed Analysis of Projections by Sequencing), a technique that can map the projections of thousands or even millions of single neurons by labeling large sets of neurons with random RNA sequences (\"barcodes\"). Axons are filled with barcode mRNA, each putative projection area isdissected, and the barcode mRNA is extracted and sequenced. Applying MAPseq to the locus coeruleus (LC), we find that individual LC neurons have preferred cortical targets. By recasting neuroanatomy, which is traditionallyviewed as a problem of microscopy, as a problem of sequencing, MAPseq harnesses advances in sequencing technology to permit high-throughput interrogation of brain circuits.

Neuroscience↗