Hopefully my occupation will have a significant clinical component related to my research. The ability of a synapse to upregulate or downregulate its activity is called synaptic plasticity. The combination of these two techniques allows us to correlate physiological changes in synaptic response with the post-translational modifications of various proteins.
Synaptic activity can modify L-type channels.
How this increase in calcium influx through L-type channels might contribute to induction and maintenance of LTP is the thrust of my research currently. I am also interested in how aging may affect these processes.