Alejandro Schinder

Remodeling of hippocampal circuits by experience and neurogenesis 

Brain function relies on a delicate balance between maintaining stable networks to store information bits in a long-lasting manner, and allowing plasticity of circuits that rewire to adapt to environmental changes or to improve or learn new behavioral tasks. Such plasticity allows specific brain regions to be modified in an activity-dependent manner and transform their input-output equation. The hippocampus is one of those regions undergoing intensive synaptic remodeling and, in addition, it bears the capacity to generate new neurons that build entirely new circuits that intermingle within the preexisting structures. This level of plasticity is subject to checkpoints that control generation, development, integration, and survival of new neurons. My lab investigates how integration of new neurons is regulated under different behavioral and physiological conditions in the hippocampus of adult mice, and how neurogenesis influences hippocampal processing. In my talk, I will discuss the role of parvalbumin-expressing GABAergic interneurons in controlling integration and function of adult-born neurons.