Research...

It is becoming clear now that dendrites can be considered as active excitable entities which can be subject to modulation by different neurotransmitters (Dendritic Neuromodulation). With the emergence of imaging and electrophysiological approaches to study dendritic physiology, I believe the field is poised to explore the fundamentals of dendritic computation. With this in mind, I aim to take advantage of these developments and combined them with pharmacological and molecular biological tools, to get a more detailed picture of the impact of interacting sub-cellular dendritic regions and their modulation for determining the firing output of the neuron.
The apical tuft of layer 5 pyramidal neurons is innervated by a large number of inhibitory inputs with unknown functions. Inhibitory postsynaptic potentials (IPSPs) evoked by distal GABAergic terminals have little or no direct impact on the somato-axonic compartment of the neuron. A possible role for these inhibitory inputs is to modulate the so called Na+-Ca2+ spikes that occur in the apical tuft. My research work focuses on the molecular mechanisms by which GABA mediates the inhibition of such regenerative processes. In particular, activation of metabotropic GABAb receptors exerts an inhibitory control of dendritic spikes by means of a very refined molecular machinery.