CRTD External Seminar

ALEJANDRO F. SCHINDER

Dresden

Conferencia; Center for Regenerative Therapies, Technische Universitat; 2017

How experience contributes to circuit assembly in the adult hippocampus The dentate gyrus of the hippocampus displays a unique degree of plasticity conveyed by its ability to generate and integrate new principal neurons (granule cells, GCs) through life. Adult-born GCs are important for specific forms of memory, such as those that demand fine discrimination of subtle differences, particularly during spatial tasks. My laboratory has focused on understanding the modifications of local dentate networks produced by the incorporation of newly generated GCs, their interaction with the microenvironment (niche), and their functional implications. Our recent findings reveal that new GCs may play distinct roles in memory encoding as they walk through the road of development. In my talk I will discuss recent approaches combining opto- and chemogenetics that we have used to understand the function of developing GCs and the mechanisms that transduce behavioral experiences into changes in their integration and plasticity.