UTD
Cortical Plasticity Laboratory
Michael P. Kilgard
Associate
Professor
Ph.D.,
University of California
at San Francisco,
1998
My research
interests relate to the general principles that underlie the remarkable
self-organizing capability of the cerebral cortex. The cortex is
continually reorganized to optimize its function to match the environment an
individual occupies. Although cellular studies have demonstrated that
plasticity mechanisms are dependent on correlation-based rules, we still do not
understand the principles that govern how sensory experience alters the
distributed responses of thousands of cortical neurons in a behaviorally useful
manner.
Understanding how brain networks self-organize themselves is critically
important for the development of new rehabilitation therapies for autism,
dyslexia, stroke, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease. Current treatment of neurological disease is
limited to pharmacological, surgical, or behavioral interventions. Recent experimental advances indicate that it
may soon be possible to effectively manipulate plasticity mechanisms in human
patients. Early attempts to develop
neuroscience-based therapies have been encouraging. The primary aim of experiments in my laboratory is to learn how sensory experience and
behavioral motivation influence cortical plasticity so that these factors can
be manipulated for therapeutic benefit.
We are using both environmental enrichment
and more targeted behavioral training to study the mechanisms of cortical
plasticity. We are also very interested
in the role the cholinergic projection from nucleus basalis plays in guiding
cortical plasticity. Electrical activation of nucleus basalis paired with
different sounds causes dramatic reorganization of the rat auditory
cortex. By systematically manipulating
features of these sounds we have been able to generate changes in cortical
topography, temporal processing, sequence selectivity, and synchronization. These studies indicate that both emotionally
salient stimuli and irrelevant background sounds contribute to cortical
organization.
This research is supported by the James S. McDonnell Foundation, the Cure Autism Now
Foundation, and the National Institute for Deafness and Other Communicative
Disorders.
Response to Broadband Repetitive Stimuli in Auditory Cortex of the Unanesthetized Rat. SE Anderson, MP Kilgard, AM Sloan, RL Rennaker, Hearing Research, 2006 (download
file).
Environmental
Enrichment Increases Paired Pulse Depression in Rat Auditory Cortex. CR
Percaccio, ND Engineer, AL Pruette, PK Pandya, R
Moucha, DL Rathbun, MP Kilgard, Journal of Neurophysiology, 94:3590-600, 2005 (download file).
Background
Sounds Contribute to Spectrotemporal Plasticity In Primary Auditory Cortex.
R Moucha, PK Pandya, ND Engineer, DL Rathbun, MP Kilgard. Experimental Brain Research,
162:417-27, 2005 (download
file).
Environmental
Enrichment Improves Response Strength, Threshold, Selectivity, and Latency of
Auditory Cortex Neurons. Engineer ND, Percaccio CR, Pandya PK, Moucha R,
Rathbun DL, Kilgard MP. Journal of Neurophysiology, 92(1):73-82, 2004
(download file).
Cortical
Network Reorganization Guided by Sensory Input Features, M.P. Kilgard, P.K.
Pandya, N.D. Engineer, R. Moucha, Biological
Cybernetics, 87(5-6):333-43, 2002 (download
file).
Order Sensitive
Plasticity in Adult Primary Auditory Cortex, M.P. Kilgard, M.M.
Merzenich, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 99:
3205-3209, 2002. (download file)
Spatial
Features Control Temporal Plasticity in Auditory Cortex, M.P. Kilgard, P.K.
Pandya, J.L. Vazquez, D. Rathbun, N.D. Engineer, R. Moucha, Audiology
and Neuro-otology, 6:196-202, 2001. (download file)
Sensory
Input Directs Spatial and Temporal Plasticity in Primary Auditory Cortex,
M.P. Kilgard, P.K. Pandya, J.L. Vazquez, Gehi, A.,
C.E. Schreiner, M.M. Merzenich, Journal of Neurophysiology, 86: 339-353,
2001. (download
file)
Distributed
Representation of Spectral and Temporal Information in Rat Auditory Cortex,
M.P. Kilgard, M.M. Merzenich, Hearing Research, 134(1-2): 16-28, 1999. (download file)
Plasticity
of Temporal Information Processing in the Primary Auditory Cortex, M.P.
Kilgard, M.M. Merzenich, Nature Neuroscience, 1(8): 727-731, 1998. (download file)
Nucleus
Basalis Activity Enables Cortical Map Reorganization, M.P. Kilgard, M.M.
Merzenich, Science 279(5357): 1714-1718, 1998.
(download file)
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Plasticity Laboratory Homepage