Disterhoft Group Research

In Vitro Biophysics

Our program focuses on characterizing the ways in which neurons store new information during associative learning at the cellular and subcellular levels. Experiments focus on the hippocampus, a paleocortical region involved in transferring information during learning from the short- to long-term memory store. We make biophysical measurements from hippocampal brain slices taken from eyeblink-trained animals to define what ionic mechanisms underlie the changes in neuronal excitability recorded in the intact animal. We have observed conditioning-specific alterations in postsynaptic intrinsic currents (calcium activated potassium currents) likely to enhance cellular excitability and are performing current and whole-cell patch clamp recordings to characterize them and their relation to acquisition and consolidation of the eyeblink-conditioned response. An important focus of our research is on cellular mechanisms for altered learning in aging. We are using a combination of behavioral and biophysical approaches to address this question.