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Duda Kvitsiani receives AUFF NOVA grant

Group Leader Duda Kvitsiani has receiced a 1.2 mio DKK NOVA grant from the Aarhus University Research Foundation (AUFF) for his project on “Next generation tools for recording neurons in 3D volume”. The aim of AUFF NOVA is to stimulate courageous and innovative research projects of high quality – projects which may have difficulties obtaining alternative funding. The project must be pioneering in its field and show clear potential for scientific breakthroughs. The hypothesis or problem behind the project may require development of new methods and it may challenge existing paradigms. Read more about the grant here: http://auff.au.dk/en/grants/auff-nova/

Description of project:
For over couple of decades neuroscience has witnessed tremendous progress in understanding how perceptions, actions and decisions are encoded in activity of single neurons. Current tools for monitoring neural activity in behaving animals rely either on electrophysiological recordings or optical imaging tools. Both of these methods have witnessed tremendous progress in recent years, going from single neural recordings to monitoring of over hundreds of neurons at a time. Yet as with any method there are some shortcomings. The electrophysiological methods allow us to record activity of large population of neurons at millisecond timescales with poor spatial resolution while imaging with best available genetically encoded sensors is relatively slow (on the orders of 20-50ms) and cannot capture neural activity at a resolution of single action potentials. However recent developments in optics, optogenetics and electrophysiology promises to make yet another breakthrough in neuroscience. Here our plan is to develop a method that will allows us to record activity of genetically defined population of neurons with both high spatial and temporal resolution in freely behaving animals.