Cortical Plasticity in Health and Disease

Abstract

My lab studies neural circuit mechanisms of motor learning. Plasticity of excitatory neurons in the cortex is critical for motor learning. In my seminar, I will discuss several projects that investigate the gating of excitatory plasticity by inhibitory circuits. During learning, subtype-specific modulation of inhibitory circuits disinhibits the dendrites of excitatory neurons, permitting learning-related plasticity. This process is downstream to acetylcholine that is released cortex-wide and globally regulates learning-related disinhibition. Furthermore, we have recently discovered that this is a promising target for therapeutic interventions in Huntington’s disease.