Freja Herborg

Assistant Professor, Gether Lab

Title: Monoamine dysfunction in neuropsychiatric disease: Insights from rare monoamine transporter variants

The talk will present our efforts to understand the role of dysfunctional monoamine signaling in neuropsychiatric disease. Through the analysis of exome sequencing data and genetic animal models, we investigate the occurrence and disruptive effects of genetic variants in monoamine transporters on normal signaling to shed new light on how monoamine dysfunction may cause or contribute to disease states.

Kavya Vinayan

Postdoc, Walter Lab

Title: Probing molecular mechanisms of presynaptic long-term plasticity

Organisms face multiple challenges in their lifetime. Yet, they maintain stable neurotransmission. This homeostatic regulation in the nervous system is key to constraining activity within steady physiological ranges and crucial to ensure robust neural communication. Neurons rely on a highly conserved mechanism known as presynaptic homeostatic potentiation (PHP) to restore baseline transmission when post-synapses become less neurotransmitter (NT) sensitive, by inducing a compensatory increase in the amount of NTs released per AP. One way synapses achieve this during sustaining challenges is by changing the local amounts of specific conserved proteins at NT release sites. Despite its relevance, how molecularly this local change of protein is achieved remains elusive. A potential mechanism that helps to adapt the amount of protein to the ever-changing microenvironment is local translation. We are currently investigating the role of local translation in eliciting long-term PHP. We observed 1) local translation at axons, 2) enrichment of specific mRNAs at axons. How are these mRNAs localized to axons and what role this locally synthesized protein molecules play is still unknown. I intend to unravel the contribution of this mechanism toward long-term PHP. Unraveling key principles of long-term PHP will reveal how nervous systems across species persevere internal and external challenges (mutations, diseases, pollution), can aid define pathology mechanisms and contribute to the development of new therapies.

Salif Axel Komi

Postdoc, Berg Lab

Title: Uncovering the spatio-temporal dynamics of lumbar spinal networks underlying movements in freely moving rodents

Mammalian locomotion relies in great part on networks located in the spinal cord, which can autonomously generate rhythms and patterns. However, few, if any, direct observations of the activity of a large number of spinal neurons exist in behaving mammals. Nevertheless, we capitalized on recent developments in ultra-dense electrode arrays to record up to 450 neurons, simultaneously, from the spinal cord of freely moving animals. In this short seminar, I will present our most recent results on the dynamics of rats lumbar spinal networks while they engage in volitional locomotion.

Please join us prior to the talk for coffee and cookies.