Dr. Takaki Komiyama is a Professor of Neurobiology and Neurosciences at UC San Diego. Dr. Komiyama received his bachelor’s degree at the University of Tokyo followed by his PhD at Stanford University under the guidance of Prof. Liqun Luo. He then conducted his postdoctoral research with Dr. Karel Svoboda at the Janelia Research Campus. Dr. Komiyama joined the faculty of UC San Diego in 2010. He applies cutting-edge circuit dissection tools to uncover neural circuit mechanisms underlying flexible behaviors.

Title: Motor cortex circuits for learned movements

Abstract:

My lab has been studying the mechanisms by which the motor cortex contributes to motor learning. I will share three of our latest, unpublished sets of results. First, I will present evidence that precise, learned activity patterns in the primary motor cortex (M1) is causally related to the generation of learned movements. By two-photon optogenetic stimulation combined with two-photon calcium imaging, we find that the learned activity pattern in M1 can drive learned movements when artificially induced. Further, an appropriate preparatory network state in M1 and a precise input to M1 are both critical for generating the learned activity. Second, I will describe how the inputs from the thalamus are critical for initiating the dynamics in the motor cortex to execute learned movements. Third, I will describe the synaptic plasticity rules that these neurons employ to generate the learned circuit within M1.