Find out more about the team here.

Our ability to learn and remember information about our environment is underpinned by synaptic plasticity. This process is fundamental to shaping who we are as individuals and is also implicated in many neurological and psychiatric disorders. Memory is fundamentally dependent on the behavioural context of learnt information and we aim to investigate the contextual factors that are important for the encoding of memory by synaptic plasticity at a neuronal circuit level.

We study this by considering the factors that regulate the induction of synaptic plasticity and the mechanisms underlying its expression. Currently this involves projects in the following areas:

1)      The role of acetylcholine and other neuromodulators in synaptic circuit function.

2)      Impairment of neural plasticity and adaptive representations by genetic risk factors for psychiatric disorders.

3)      The mechanisms underlying postsynaptic neurotransmitter receptor trafficking.

4)      A data architecture system for open access neuroscience data.

We use a combination of techniques including in vitro and in vivo electrophysiology, 2-photon imaging, optogenetics, behavioural assays and computational modelling.