Tay Netoff, Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering

E-MAIL: [email protected]

Research Interests:

The Neural Netoff lab is interested in discovering basic mechanisms of epilepsy. We take a dynamical approach to the disease in that we believe you must understand the dynamics of the neurons and their interactions to understand how seizures, a network phenomenon, are generated. We study seizures in brain slices bathed in toxins. By recording from single neurons using patch-clamp recording techniques we can identify changes in the neuron's dynamics as well as changes in the activity a neuron receives. Using a computer interfaced to the neuron through the amplifier, known as a dynamic clamp, we can also simulate changes in neurons that can occur following a seizure. The dynamic clamp can also be used to introduce virtual synapses between real neurons or with virtual neurons simulated on the computer. Patch clamp and dynamic clamp studies are limited to recording the activity of a few neurons at one time. To study the behavior of networks of neurons during a seizure we are turning to optical imaging techniques.

To image the activity, the brain slice is bathed in a dye that indicates the amount of calcium inside neurons, a good indicator of the neuron's activity. This allows us to monitor the activity of hundreds of neurons simultaneously during a seizure.


Selected Publications:

(For a comprehensive list of recent publications, refer to PubMed, a service provided by the National Library of Medicine.)

  • Stieve BJ, Richner TJ, Krook-Magnuson C, Netoff TI, Krook-Magnuson E. Optimization of closed-loop electrical stimulation enables robust cerebellar-directed seizure control. Brain. 2022 Feb 8:awac051. doi: 10.1093/brain/awac051.
  • Zick JL, Crowe DA, Blackman RK, Schultz K, Bergstrand DW, DeNicola AL, Carter RE, Ebner TJ, Lanier LM, Netoff TI, Chafee MV. Disparate insults relevant to schizophrenia converge on impaired spike synchrony and weaker synaptic interactions in prefrontal local circuits. Curr Biol. 2021 Oct 20:S0960-9822(21)01363-4.
  • Louie KH, Petrucci MN, Grado LL, Lu C, Tuite PJ, Lamperski AG, MacKinnon CD, Cooper SE, Netoff TI. Semi-automated approaches to optimize deep brain stimulation parameters in Parkinson's disease. J Neuroeng Rehabil. 2021 May 21;18(1):83.
  • Faramarzi S, Netoff TI. Closed-Loop neuromodulation for clustering neuronal populations. J Neurophysiol. 2021 Jan 1;125(1):248-255.
  • Moghimi P, Torres Jimenez N, McLoon LK, Netoff TI, Lee MS, MacDonald A 3rd, Miller RF. Electoretinographic evidence of retinal ganglion cell-dependent function in schizophrenia. Schizophr Res. 2020 May;219:34-46.
  • Darrow D, Lee-Norris A, Larson A, Samadani U, Netoff TI. Discrepancy between internal and external intracranial pressure transducers: Quantification of an old source of error in EVDs?  World Neurosurg. 2020 Jan;133:e18-e25.
  • Darrow DP, O'Brien P, Richner TJ, Netoff TI, Ebbini ES. Reversible neuroinhibition by focused ultrasound is mediated by a thermal mechanism. Reversible neuroinhibition by focused ultrasound is mediated by a thermal mechanism.Darrow DP, O'Brien P, Richner TJ, Netoff TI, Ebbini ES. Brain Stimul. 2019 Nov-Dec;12(6):1439-1447.
  • Moghimi P, Lim KO, Netoff TI. Data driven classification using fMRI network measures: Application to schizophrenia. Front Neuroinform. 2018 Oct 30;12:71.
  • Lipshetz B, Khasabov SG, Truong H, Netoff TI, Simone DA, Giesler GJ Jr. Responses of thalamic neurons to itch- and pain-producing stimuli in rats. J Neurophysiol. 2018 Sep 1;120(3):1119-1134.
  • Zeidler Z, Brandt-Fontaine M, Leintz C, Krook-Magnuson C, Netoff T, Krook-Magnuson E.Targeting the mouse ventral hippocampus in the intrahippocampal kainic acid model of temporal lobe epilepsy. eNeuro. 2018 Aug 8;5(4). pii: ENEURO.0158-18.2018.Zick JL, Blackman RK, Crowe DA, Amirikian B, DeNicola AL, Netoff TI, Chafee MV. Blocking NMDAR disrupts spike timing and decouples monkey prefrontal circuits: implications for activity-dependent disconnection in Schizophrenia. Neuron. 2018;98(6):1243-1255.
  • Nagaraj V, Lamperski A, Netoff TI. Seizure control in a computational model using a reinforcement learning stimulation paradigm. Int J Neural Syst. 2017 Nov;27(7):1750012.
  • Holt AB, Wilson D, Shinn M, Moehlis J, Netoff TI. Phasic burst stimulation: A closed-loop approach to tuning deep brain stimulation parameters for Parkinson's disease. PLoS Comput Biol. 2016 Jul 14;12(7):e1005011.
  • MacDonald III AW, Zick JL, Chafee MV, Netoff TI. Integrating insults: Using fault tree analysis to guide schizophrenia research across levels of analysis. Front Hum Neurosci. 2016 Jan 6;9:698
  • Snari R, Tinsley MR, Wilson D, Faramarzi S, Netoff TI, Moehlis J, Showalter K. Desynchronization of stochastically synchronized chemical oscillators. Chaos. 2015;25(12):123116
  • Nagaraj V, Lee ST, Krook-Magnuson E, Soltesz I, Benquet P, Irazoqui PP, Netoff TI. Future of seizure prediction and intervention: Closing the loop. J Clin Neurophysiol. 2015;32:194-206.
  • Bandarabadi M, Rasekhi J, Teixeira CA, Netoff TI, Parhi KK, Dourado A. Early seizure detection using neuronal potential similarity: A generalized low-complexity and robust measure. Int J Neural Syst. 2015 Aug;25(5):1550019.
  • Wilson D, Holt AB, Netoff TI, Moehlis Optimal entrainment of heterogeneous noisy neurons. J. Front Neurosci. 2015 May 29;9:192.
  • Connolly AT, Jensen AL, Bello EM, Netoff TI, Baker KB, Johnson MD, Vitek JL. Modulations in oscillatory frequency and coupling in globus pallidus with increasing parkinsonian severity. J Neurosci. 2015;35(15):6231-40.
  • Holt AB, Netoff TI. Origins and suppression of oscillations in a computational model of Parkinson's disease. J Comput Neurosci. 2014;37(3):505-21.

Former Graduate Students:

Jennifer Zick (Ph.D. 2018, Neuroscience, University of Minnesota).

Abbey Holt (Ph.D. 2016, Neuroscience, University of Minnesota).

Tay Netoff