Presenter(s): Ally Wimberly
Faculty Mentor(s): Paul Steffan & David McCormick
Poster 70
Session: Sciences
Pupillometry has effectively correlated pupil size with cortical states in awake mice. High amounts of brain activity have been associated with large pupil size whereas low amounts of brain activity associate with smaller pupil size in awake mice. The purpose of this project is to acquire widefield imaging on sleeping laboratory mice in order to gain a better understanding of mouse neuronal activity during sleep. I aim to find lower amounts of brain activity and small pupil size during non-REM sleep along with high amounts of brain activity with large pupil size during REM sleep. The widefield and pupil imaging will provide the opportunity to correlate certain neuronal activity with behaviors and other neuronal activity with deeper neural mechanisms happening during sleep. Some of the behavior correlates we will use are: movement of whiskers, paws, and fluctuation of the pupil size. Once the behavioral activity is excluded, the deeper neural mechanisms during sleep will be narrowed down and able to be focused on. Finding the deeper neural mechanisms will enable us to track neural circuits and networks involved during different stages of sleep in order to evolve a better profile of overall neuronal activity during sleep.