Week 5: Herry & Courtin

Like many others in the class, I had difficulty with both papers this week. Despite my hypothetical interest in neuronal circuits, I find the concepts involved quite challenging. Thus, I expect many of my questions and observations to be misguided or upon false pretense. Nevertheless, here we go.

While I found the Herry et al. paper to be far less confusing and much more linear than the Courtin et al. paper, I still was not one hundred percent on board with their experimental design. I did not always feel that their results answered the exact questions they posed, and overall, I feel that they are asking too much of their results in terms of conceptual extensions. For instance, concluding that BA inactivation prevents behavioral transitions after observing disruptions in behavior after inhibiting the circuits using muscimol doesn’t feel sufficient to me. Although the authors do concede that muscimol is indiscriminate in inhibiting neuronal activity, I think the conclusion is too great a jump – what about all the interneurons outside the primary circuits being studied that also get inhibited? Why use muscimol in the first place and not a DREADD or opto? I understand that such experimental measures rely heavily on resources like time and money, but in this case, I don’t feel the researchers actually accomplish much by inactivating the BA with muscimol.

I struggle to comment on the Courtin et al. paper… Despite spending a large chunk of time trying to understand the basic concepts of the paper, I cannot say I have any insights to share. I am, however, prepared for class tomorrow with questions.