Looking for a supportive, dynamic and inclusive environment to do cutting edge science? The Panagiotakos Lab at Mount Sinai has two postdoctoral positions open! Links for both positions below – come join us if you love neural development, ion channels or anything in between! The Panagiotakos Lab, in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, is seeking postdoctoral fellows (recently completed Ph.D., M.D. or M.D./Ph.D.) with expertise in calcium imaging, electrophysiology, developmental neuroscience, stem cell biology, and/or genomics/sequencing approaches to study cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie the acquisition of cell fate during mammalian brain development. Dr. Panagiotakos’ team combines multiple complementary approaches, including genetic mouse models, calcium imaging, fluorescence microscopy, pharmacology, cortical slice cultures, and various omics and biochemical analyses, to interrogate roles for calcium signaling, electrical activity, ion channel splice isoforms, and disease risk genes during normal development and in the context of neuropsychiatric disorders of developmental origin. The qualified candidates will use cutting-edge cellular/molecular biology, imaging and sequencing approaches in these studies, including long-isoform sequencing, CUT&RUN, and live imaging, to investigate the impact and mechanistic underpinnings of disease-relevant ion channels and calcium signaling on cellular events during brain development, including proliferation, migration, neurogenesis and gliogenesis.

Adolescent development is not only shaped by the mere passing of time and accumulating experience, but it also depends on pubertal timing and the cascade of maturational processes orchestrated by gonadal hormones. Although individual variability in puberty onset confounds adolescent studies, it has not been efficiently controlled for. Here we introduce ultrasonic bone age assessment to estimate biological maturity and disentangle the independent effects of chronological and biological age on adolescent cognitive abilities, emotional development, and brain maturation. Comparing cognitive performance of participants with different skeletal maturity we uncover the impact of biological age on both IQ and specific abilities. With respect to emotional development, we find narrow windows of highest vulnerability determined by biological age. In terms of neural development, we focus on the relevance of neural states unrelated to sensory stimulation, such as cortical activity during sleep and resting states, and we uncover a novel anterior-to-posterior pattern of human brain maturation. Based on our findings, bone age is a promising biomarker of adolescent maturity.

Unlike even the most sophisticated current forms of artificial intelligence, developing biological organisms must build their neural hardware from scratch. Furthermore they must start to evade predators and find food before this construction process is complete. I will discuss an interdisciplinary program of mathematical and experimental work which addresses some of the computational principles underlying neural development. This includes (i) how growing axons navigate to their targets by detecting and responding to molecular cues in their environment, (ii) the formation of maps in the visual cortex and how these are influenced by visual experience, and (iii) how patterns of neural activity in the zebrafish brain develop to facilitate precisely targeted hunting behaviour. Together this work contributes to our understanding of both normal neural development and the etiology of neurodevelopmental disorders.