Gordon M Shepherd
Northwestern University, IL·Neuroscience
Reaching, grasping and other goal-directed arm and hand movements depend on motor areas of the brain's cortex. When these areas malfunction, disability is common.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Physiology
- Topics
motor cortex
somatosensory cortex
synaptic circuits
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Nov 2027
What they work on
- Map direct and multi-step connections from secondary motor cortex (M2) to forelimb primary motor cortex (M1) in mouse brain slices, using in vivo viral labeling, optogenetic stimulation and whole-cell recordings.
- Test whether M2→M1 circuits differ from S1→M1 circuits in cell-type-specific connections and synaptic dynamics, giving top-down M2 input more direct influence on M1 output neurons.
- Record M1 spiking with linear-array electrodes in awake mice at rest and during natural forelimb movements, while optogenetically manipulating M2 input to assess the dynamics of M2→M1 communication.
More about the research
Movement requires two kinds of signals to come together. Premotor areas plan actions and predict their sensory results. Sensory areas report what is actually happening. How the brain circuits combine these signals at the level of individual cells and synapses (connections between neurons) is still largely unknown. Mapping these circuits in mice can reveal how disorders disrupt movement. It could also eventually inform treatments.
Why it matters
Many common disorders that cause disability affect motor cortex circuits in humans. Learning how premotor and sensory signals are combined in the motor cortex could help reveal the mechanisms behind these disorders. That knowledge may eventually guide treatments. The work also adds to general understanding of how layered cortical networks communicate.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Lee Miller
Northwestern University, IL·Biomedical Engineering
Build decoders that predict intended muscle activity (EMG) from primary motor cortex spiking recorded in humans with high-level spinal cord injury, trained with EMG, hand posture and force data from able-bodied people doing the same actions.
Hiroyuki Kato
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC·Neuroscience
Map the fast non-lemniscal auditory pathway from the cochlear nucleus through the thalamus to cortical layer 6 in mice, using anatomical tracing and in vivo single-unit recordings.
David Ostry
Yale University, CT·Neuroscience
Test whether auditory, somatosensory or motor cortex is causally needed to retain newly learned speech movements by suppressing each area with continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS) after learning.
The school
Northwestern University: 71 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 536 research doctorates a year.
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