Experience-dependent plasticity

…cortex called Experience dependent plasticity (EDP). There are two general forms of synaptic EDP: Hebbian, and Homeostatic. Our aim was to determine the role of astrocytes in these processes, using in vivo whisker deprivation and ex vivo fEPSP recordings. In response to a week of unilateral all-whisker sensory deprivation of one side of the snout, a PKA-dependent form of long term potentiation (LTP) emerges at L4-L2/3 synapses in the contralateral barrel cortex, in addition to the NMDA receptor de

…significance of OH signals for V1 experience-dependent plasticity, we tested orexin KO-mice in the classic ocular dominance plasticity (ODP) paradigm using intrinsic signal optical imaging (OI). Since ODP depends on age and housing conditions, we tested ODP during the critical period (CP) for ODP (P21-P35) and in adults (>P110) with standard cage (SC) housi

It is widely accepted that experience-dependent plasticity is required for memory formation. However, underlying transcriptional and epigenetic changes are poorly understood.This project aims to deepen our understanding of the gene regulatory dynamics underpinning memory formation and how it is orchestrated with synaptic plasticity.To this end, we first characterized the immediate early genes (IEGs) and the secondary response genes (SRGs) at several time points after aversive learning from FACS-isolated cFOS-expressing mouse amygdalar nuclei. We performed RNA-seq to investigate the experience-

…and function induced by learning and experience-dependent plasticity. How do our brains acheive this balance between opposing need for plasticity and stability? Over the past two decades, we and others have uncovered a family of “homeostatic” negative feedback mechanisms that are theorized to stabilize overall brain activity while allowing specific connections to be reconfigured by experience. Here I discuss recent work in which we demonstrate that individua

…We induced experience-dependent plasticity in mice of either sex by blocking one nostril for one day, a minimally invasive manipulation that leaves the sensory organ undamaged and is akin to the natural transient blockage suffered during common mild rhinal infections. We found that such brief sensory d

…not only track changes related to both experience-dependent plasticity and brain maturation during development, but also appear to be actively involved in the fine regulation of brain plasticity and