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Bruce McNaughton

NERF Senior Visiting Scientist 

Ph.D. (Cum Laude) Psychology, Dalhousie University.
M.Sc. Biology, Carleton University.
B.Sc. (Honours, First Class) Biology, Carleton University

bruce.mcnaughton@uleth.ca

Research Interests:

  • neural dynamics and memory reactivation
  • spatial coding mechanisms in hippocampus
  • theoretical neuroscience
  • decoding functional neural circuits using combined electrophysiological and molecular markers of neuronal activity.

I am a senior visiting scientist at NERF where my role has been to assist in bootstrapping the new NERF enterprise and to initiate several new research and technology programmes. In 'real life' I am a Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta Canada, where I run a 45+ member research group devoted to study of neural dynamics (http://lethbridgebraindynamics.com [External website]). In 2012 I will be resident almost full time at NERF in order to begin work on a new EC Research Programme in collaboration with colleagues at NERF, U Amsterdam and KU Leuven. At other times I typically am in residence about 10 weeks per year.

Neural Dynamics and Memory

My research focuses on the dynamics of the hippocampal formation and its interactions with the neocortex within the context of memory operations. My early career concentrated on the biophysics of LTP (long-term synaptic potentiation) and the role of this process in associative information storage. This work was highlighted by the first demonstration that LTP involves "Hebbian" principles of association, which form the basis of all neural network learning algorithms. In the last 15 years, I have been at the forefront of development of methods (e.g. tetrode recording)t o study the large-scale interactions of neurons in the intact brain during the encoding, storage, recall and consolidation of memory. This development is continuing in the development of new designs for high density recording probes in collaboration with imec engineers. At the other end of the scientific spectrum, I am involved in the development of high throughput, large-scale methods for analysis of immediate-early gene activation markers of neural activity in the brain. This method permits visualization of the recent history of activity in the brain at cellular resolution, thus allowing identification of not only which areas of the brain are activated during cognitive processing, but which specific neurons. As part of my NERF work, we are developing new mouse lines that will report neural activity at two or more discrete time points and methods for functional circuit analysis using both retrograde and trans-synaptic anterograde neural marking in combination with IEG activation analysis to study the coding dynamics of identified neural circuits.

Recent Publications

  1. Navratilova, Z., Giocomo, L.M., Fellous, J.M., Hasselmo, M.E., and McNaughton, B.L. (2011). Phase precession and variable spatial scaling in a periodic attractor map model of medial entorhinal grid cells with realistic after-spike dynamics. Hippocampus. 2011 Apr 11. doi: 10.1002/hipo.20939.
  2. McNaughton, B.L. (2010) Cortical hierarchies, sleep, and the extraction of knowledge from memory. Artificial Intelligence, 174:205-214.
  3. Alme C.B., Buzzetti R.A., Marrone D.F., Leutgeb J.K., Chawla M.K., Schaner M.J., Bohanick J.D., Khoboko T., Leutgeb S., Moser E.I., Moser M.-B., McNaughton B.L. and Barnes C.A. (2010) Hippocampal Granule Cells Opt for Early Retirement. Hippocampus, 20:1109-1123.
  4. Colgin L.L., Leutgeb S., Jezek K., Leutgeb J.K., Moser E.I., McNaughton B.L., Moser, M-B (2010) Attractor-Map Versus Autoassociation Based Attractor Dynamics in the Hippocampal Network. J. Neurophysiology, The Journal of Neurophysiol, 104:35-50.
  5. Johnson L.A., Euston D.R., Tatsuno M., McNaughton, B.L., (2010) "Stored-trace reactivation in rat prefrontal cortex is correlated with down-to-up state fluctuation density", The Journal of Neuroscience, 30:2650-2661.
  6. Lansink, C.S., Golstein, P.M., Lankelma, J.V., McNaughton, B.L., and Pennartz, C.M.A. (2009) Hippocampus leads ventral striatum in replay of place-reward information. PLOS Biology, 7:1-11.
  7. Takehara-Nishiuchi, K. & McNaughton, B.L. (2008) Spontaneous changes in neocortical code for associative memory during consolidation. Science 322:960-963
  8. Cowen, S.L. and McNaughton, B.L. (2007) Selective delay activity in the medial prefrontal cortex of the rat: Contribution of sensorimotor information and contingency. Journal of Neurophysiology, 98:303-316.
  9. Marrone, D.F., Schaner, M.J., McNaughton, B.L., Worley, P.F., and Barnes, C.A. (2008) Immediate-early gene expression at rest recapitulates recent experience. The Journal of Neuroscience, 28:1030-1033.
  10. McNaughton, B.L., Battaglia, F.P., Jensen, O., Moser, E.I., and Moser, M-B. (2006) Path-integration and the neural basis of the 'cognitive map'. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 7:663:678.
  11. Sargolini, F., Fyhn, M., Hafting, T., McNaughton, B.L., Witter, M.P., Moser, M-B. and Moser, E.I. (2006) Conjunctive representation of position, direction and velocity in entorhinal cortex. Science, 312:758-762.