Our laboratory studies the mechanisms through which neural activity in sensory pathways regulate the strength of synapses in cortical neurons.
Dendritic spines assume very different shapes.
One long-term goal of this research is to understand how prenatal toxins, such as alcohol, interfere with the development of cortical plasticity mechanisms to impair the rate of learning from sensory experience throughout life. Experience-dependent plasticity in adult rat barrel field cortex. Computational model of experience-dependent plasticity in adult rat barrel cortex. Role of supragranular and infragranular layers in cortical plasticity. Science, in press.