Project:
Linking Synaptic Pathology to Brain State Dynamics in Autism Spectrum Disorder Using C. elegans Model
Laboratories:
Biographical Information:
Rani studied psychology and biology at the university of Haifa. He did MSc in neuroscience at BarIlan Univeristy with Prof. Moshe Bar, researching the effects of internal state on visual processing in humans. He did my PhD in neuroscience at Weizmann Institute of Science with Dr. Takashi Kawashima, building light-sheet microscopy software for fast single-cell resolution whole-brain imaging and behavioral imaging arenas for fast naturalistic behavioral characterization. Furthermore, Rani worked on researching the role of serotonergic signaling in motor adaptation.
Current Work:
This project uses a tiny worm, C. elegans, as a simplified model to understand these mutations. Despite having only 302 neurons, the worm’s brain shares many features with human brains, especially how internal states—like hunger or stress—affect sensory processing. Deficits in sensory processing are a hallmark of ASD. We plan to record the worm’s brain activity in different behavioral states, creating models to understand how these states change sensory responses. This will give rise to an interpretable, state-of-the-art model of state-dependent sensory processing at whole-brain scale. We will then record animals with ASD-related mutations and examine how these genetic changes impact sensory processing using this model. This work aims to uncover fundamental mechanisms of state-dependent sensory processing and determine how genetic mutations lead to emergent deficits in sensory processing.
Publications:
Barbara R, Nagathihalli Kantharaju M, Haruvi R, Harrington K, Kawashima T. PyZebrascope: An Open-Source Platform for Brain-Wide Neural Activity Imaging in Zebrafish. Front Cell Dev Biol. 2022;10.
Haruvi R*, Barbara R*, Shainer I, Kawashima T. Natural Motor Adaptation by Serotonergic Control of Brain-Wide Motor Circuits (BioRxiv, 2024)
Keywords:
Whole-brain imaging, Whole-brain dynamics modeling, Neural circuits, Multi-scale models, Functional connectivity