Título: “All-optical dissection of thalamo-cortical dynamics during sleep” 

Summary: Brain activity during sleep is characterized by circuit-specific oscillations, including slow waves, spindles, sharp-wave ripples or theta, that are nested in thalamocortical or hippocampus networks, respectively. However, the activity of other brain circuits is strongly modulated during sleep states. A major challenge is to determine the neural mechanisms underlying these activities and their functional implications. In this lecture, I will summarize our work on the dissection of the neural circuits underlying sleep-wake control, sleep oscillations and their relevance to brain plasticity associated with REM sleep, and discuss their relevance to the elaboration of goal-directed behaviors including feeding and emotional processing.

Conferenciante: Prof. Antoine Adamantidis. Associate Professor in Systems Neurophysiology, Dept of Neurology. Universidad de Berna (Suiza)

Fecha y hora: jueves 18 de mayo a las 12.30h.

Lugar: Seminario 4

Biosketch: Prof. Antoine Adamantidis is an Associate Professor in Systems Neurophysiology in the Dept of Neurology at the University of Bern, and the Director of the Zentrum Fur Experimentelle Neurologie (ZEN) at the Inselspital. He obtained his master and doctoral education at the Universities of Liege, Belgium, and trained as a postdoctoral fellow and a Research Associate at Stanford University School of Medicine, USA.

 Prof. Adamantidis’s research objectives aim at investigating the wiring, firing dynamics and plasticity of the neural circuits regulating sleep-wake states in normal and pathological states using in vitro and in vivo optogenetics - a technology that he and his colleagues pioneered at Stanford University - combined to in vivo imaging and electro-physiological methods in mice. His research program has been driven by questions such as What define a sleep/wake circuit? What is the relevance of neural discharge rate in controlling sleep-wake states and sleep function? How pathophysiological symptoms of sleep disorders (narcolepsy, insomnia, etc.) relate to sleep-wake circuits dynamics? His laboratory identified brain circuits controlling sleep-wake states, sleep oscillations (slow waves, theta) and synaptic plasticity underlying memory consolidation and behavioral optimization. His recent work identify a new mechanisms for cortical plasticity during in healthy brain or during stroke recovery.

 Prof. Adamantidis has received several awards including the Swiss Brain League Prize, the Pfizer Research Award, the R. Broughton Young Investigator Award (Canadian Sleep Society), 2 ERC grants (starting & consolidator), a Canadian Research Chair in Neural circuits and Optogenetics, a NIH Pathway to Independence (PI) Award-K99/R00 (USA), NARSAD (now Behavioral Brain Foundation) and Sleep Research Society Young Investigator Award (USA).