Laboratory for Circuit and Behavioral Physiology
Research Areas
| Understanding how the circuits of the brain interact to guide behavior is a fundamental goal of neuroscience. Due much in part to the evolution of the genetic approach, the mouse has become a valuable tool in addressing this issue on multiple levels of complexity, including the levels of systems and circuits. Our research focuses on the development and application of genetic and physiological tools in the mouse to understand how plasticity shapes memory in the hippocampal circuit and beyond. Emerging technologies allow the inducible and reversible silencing of synaptic transmission of genetically and anatomically defined subsets of neurons. In combination with the physiological recording of neuronal activity in behaving animals these genetics techniques provide an exciting tool with which we can link circuits, physiology and behavior. |  Laboratory Head Thomas John McHugh (Ph.D.)  |
Research Subjects
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List of Selected Publications
| (1) | Nakashiba, T., Young, J.Z., McHugh, T.J., Buhl, D.L., and Tonegawa, S.: "Inducible, Reversible Inhibition of Synaptic Transmission Reveals the Role of CA3 Output in Hippocampal Learning and Memory." Science, 319(5876): 1260-4, (2008). |
| (2) | McHugh, T.J.*, Jones, M.W.*, Quinn, J.J., Balthasar, N., Coppari, R., Elmquist, J.K., Lowell, B.B., Fanselow, M.S., Wilson, M.A., and Tonegawa, S.: "Dentate gyrus NMDA receptors mediate rapid pattern separation in the hippocampal network." Science. 317(5834):94-9, (2007) |
| (3) | McHugh, T.J. and Tonegawa, S.: "Spatial exploration is required for the formation of contextual fear memory." Behav. Neurosci. 121(2):335-9, 2007 |
| (4) | Nakazawa, K., McHugh, T.J., Wilson, M.A., Tonegawa, S., and Wilson, M.A.: "NMDA receptors, place cells and hippocampal spatial memory." Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 5(5):361-372, (2004). |
| (5) | McHugh, T.J., Blum, K.I., Tsien, J.Z., Tonegawa, S., and Wilson, M.A.: "mpaired Hippocampal Representation of Space in CA-1 Specific NMDAR1 Knockout Mice." Cell, 87:1339-1349, (1996). |