Sponsored by the Kim Family Fund

"Manipulating peptidergic pathways by tissue-specific elimination of an essential biosynthetic enzyme"

Presenter:
Richard E. Mains, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Neuroscience,
UConn Health Farmington, CT

Citation:
Changes in Corticotrope Gene Expression Upon Increased Expression of Peptidylglycine α-Amidating Monooxygenase.
Mains RE, Blaby-Haas C, Rheaume BA, Eipper BA.
Endocrinology. 2018 Jul 1;159(7):2621-2639.

Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29788427

Neuroscience Journal Club

"Spinal cord injury, nociceptor transcriptional changes and pain"

Research in Progress (RIP),
Jessica Yasko,
Graduate Assistant,
Mains Lab

Sponsored by the Kim Family Fund

"Function and regulation of SLO-2 potassium channel"

Presenter:
Bojun Chen, PhD,
Assistant Professor, Department of Neuroscience, UConn Health, Farmington, CT

Relevant citation: http://www.jneurosci.org/content/38/5/1073.long

Neuroscience Journal Club

Presenter:
Michal Ragan
Graduate Assistant


Paper to be presented:
"Dopaminergic neurons inhibit striatal output through non-canonical release of GABA"

Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3944587/

Deadline to submit an abstract for consideration to the 18th Annual Department of Neuroscience Program Retreat

Sponsored by the Kim Family Fund

“Exploiting principles of spike-timing-dependent plasticity to treat amblyopia”

Presenter:
Eric Gaier, MD, PhD, Clinical Fellow, Neuro-ophthalmology at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, MA

Host: Dr. Richard Mains (mains@uchc.edu)

Relevant citation: https://insights.ovid.com/pubmed?pmid=28885251

Neuroscience Journal Club - Research in Progress (RIP)

“The role of TIMP-1 in the development of hypersensitivity using a model of cutaneous inflammation”

Brittany Knight,
Graduate Assistant,
Baumbauer Lab

Sponsored by CURE (Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy)

"Epilepsy and drug discovery in larval zebrafish"

Presenter:
Scott Baraban, Professor & William K. Bowes Jr. Endowed Chair in Neuroscience Research, UCSF
Adjunct Professor, Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, UC Berkeley

Talk summary: Zebrafish (Danio rerio) have emerged as a promising and valuable model organism. The increasing popularity of this small vertebrate is evident from the growing numbers of publications, and new discoveries associated with the use of zebrafish for studying development, brain function, human disease and drug screening. Owing to the development of novel technologies, the range of zebrafish research possibilities is constantly expanding with new imaging, electrophysiological, and gene editing tools enhancing traditional techniques. Despite the widespread success of zebrafish in the neuroscience community, epilepsy research using this organism is more limited. To address this issue, we began to adapt larval zebrafish for epilepsy related studies almost twenty years ago. With the rapidly expanding molecular and neuroscience tool box, we are now using zebrafish models mimicking human pediatric epilepsies with genetic causes. These genetically modified zebrafish are amenable to rapid drug screening, sophisticated behavioral analysis, long-term electrophysiological monitoring or whole-brain calcium imaging, and hold great potential to advance our understanding and treatment of epilepsy. In this lecture, I will highlight the past and present techniques which have made, and continue to make, zebrafish an attractive model organism in epilepsy research. I will focus on scn1 mutant zebrafish mimicking a catastrophic form of pediatric epilepsy known as Dravet syndrome, and our aquarium-to-bedside success screening repurposed drug libraries to identify novel lead compounds for this disorder. I will also discuss our on-going efforts to use CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing technologies to generate zebrafish mutants for all known human epilepsy genes on the CURE EGI list.

Host: Dr. Eric Levine, eslevine@uchc.edu

CURE is a 501(c)3 dedicated to finding a cure for epilepsy. http://www.CUREepilepsy.org

Neuroscience Journal Club

Research in Progress (RIP)

"The Aging Bladder Phenotype: Evolution of an Adaptive System"

Cara Hardy
Graduate Assistant
Kuchel Lab

Registration to attend the 18th Annual Scientific Retreat is due TODAY!

Please contact Jody Gridley for the registration link.

Open to the Neuroscience Community only.

Sponsored by the Kim Family Fund

Rashmi Bansal
Professor, Department of Neuroscience,
UConn Health, Farmington, CT

Neuroscience Journal Club

Research in Progress (RIP)

Matthew Sticco
Graduate Assistant
Martinelli Lab