Abstract: An elaborated thalamocortical network is one of the defining features of the mammalian brain. Here, embedded within the scaffolding of reciprocally projecting excitatory neurons in the cortex and thalamus, are local inhibitory neurons (interneurons) that regulate the spatiotemporal dynamics of principal neuron activity. However, while we have gained a good understanding of the cell type diversity, development and function of cortical interneurons, we know far less about thalamic interneurons. In this seminar, I will present recent data on some of the unique features of thalamic interneurons that set them apart from their better studied cortical counterpart. At the end of the seminar, I hope to have generated a renewed interest for a cell class that may have undergone rapid changes during evolution, co-opted to the thalamus from nearby brain compartments to accommodate an increasingly complex thalamocortical system.   

Biosketch : Alessio Delogu is a senior lecturer and group leader in the Department of Basic and Clinical Neuroscience at King’s College, London. His laboratory has made important discoveries on the ontogeny of thalamic local circuit GABAergic neurons and contributed to the characterization of neuronal lineages using single cell transcriptomics in other regions of the developing brainstem. Alessio graduated in molecular biology from the University of Rome, training with Prof Claudia Bagni on RNA biology. He then moved to Vienna for a PhD with Prof Meinrad Busslinger at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology, where he investigated the molecular control of lineage fate decisions and cell differentiation in the immune system. Alessio became interested in the development and function of thalamic circuitries while working as Marie Sklodowska-Curie and EMBO fellow with Professor Andrew Lumsden, FRS and director of the MRC Centre for Developmental Neurobiology in London. In 2013, he was an EMBO-funded visiting scientist in the laboratory of Prof Botond Roska, at the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel. Alessio’s laboratory uses mouse genetics, in vivo viral transduction, EEG/EMG polysomnography and behavioral paradigms to study the development, maturation and function of defined thalamic inhibitory cell populations.

Lugar: Aula 0

Fecha y hora: viernes 9 de febrero, 13 horas

“Seminario patrocinado en la III Convocatoria de Proyectos Docentes y Culturales sobre Liderazgo y Humanismo Cívico de la Fundación Tatiana"