"The future aint what it used to be”
- Yogi Berra
 
It is precisely because the future is unpredictable that the mammalian brain has evolved the capacity to acquire new information through sensory experiences, store this information as memories, and rapidly retrieve this information to modify behavior. But how do novel sensory experiences embed themselves in the fabric of the brain to form memories? And how do specific developmental disorders, such as autism, alter this process? These questions drive the research in my laboratory, which examines the cellular and synaptic and molecular mechanisms of cortical plasticity.
 
The mouse primary visual cortex is used as a model system to determine:
1. where experience-dependent plasticity is initiated in the cortical circuitry
2. how experience regulates the growth or retraction of synapses
3. which molecular pathways regulate dendrite, axon, and synaptic growth and retraction
4. how plasticity mechanisms change with age
 
TECHNIQUES:
2-photon laser scanning microscopy to repeatedly image neurons, synapses, and proteins in the living brain of mice over periods of weeks. We also use this technique to image cellular physiology in vivo using calcium indicators.
Intrinsic signal optical imaging to non-invasively and repeatedly image stimulus-induced responses in populations of neurons in the intact, living brain.
Single unit electrophysiology is used to obtain quantitative measurements of receptive field properties of cortical neurons in vivo