Mapping Synaptic Connectivity
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The brain is made of hundreds of different types of neurons, which connect to each other in highly stereotyped patterns. Despite our unprecedented ability to classify neurons based on their transcription, we are sorely lacking in the ability to measure those specific patterns of synaptic connectivity.
A major goal of our research program is to identify these stereotyped patterns of synaptic connectivity. Importantly, we want to develop tools that can be scaled to measure the circuit quickly and cheaply, such that we can make comparisons across conditions, like in disease states or following periods of synaptic reorganization such as development or bouts of learning.
We are pursuing several approaches to measure the cell-type specific circuitry of the mouse cortex, rabies-based trans-synaptic labeling, multi-plexed patterned optogenetics stimulation, spatial transcriptomics, and synaptic barcoding
The ultimate goal is to generate highly-specific wiring diagrams from individual mice that can offer functional insight into cortical computations and identify specific cell-types and sub-circuits that may be effected by disease