On 28th November OxTalks will move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events' (full details are available on the Staff Gateway).
There will be an OxTalks freeze beginning on Friday 14th November. This means you will need to publish any of your known events to OxTalks by then as there will be no facility to publish or edit events in that fortnight. During the freeze, all events will be migrated to the new Oxford Events site. It will still be possible to view events on OxTalks during this time.
If you have any questions, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
Perception is linked to a calcium-dependent spiking mechanism that is built into the distal dendrites of layer 5 pyramidal tract neurons (L5PTs) – the major output cell type of the cerebral cortex. It is yet unclear which circuits activate this cellular mechanism upon sensory stimulation. Here we found that the same thalamocortical axons that relay sensory signals to layer 4 also densely target the dendritic domain by which pyramidal tract neurons initiate calcium spikes. Distal dendritic inputs, which normally appear greatly attenuated at the cell body, thereby generate bursts of action potentials in cortical output upon stimulus onset. Our findings indicate that thalamus drives an active dendritic mechanism to couple sensory signals with top-down information streams into cortical output. Thus, in addition to being the central hub for sensory signals, thalamus is also likely to ensure that the signals it relays to cortex are perceived by the animal.
