Cellular Neurophysiology Projects

Contacts: Pietro Baldelli (Senior Collaborator); Laura Ceolin, Joachin Sholz-Starke (Post-docs), Davide Boido, Pasqualina Farisello, Mariana Covello, Enrico Ferrea (PhD students).

A common way to explain seizures is the disruption of the normal balance between excitatory and inhibitory input. Increasing evidence showed that epileptogenetic processes transform a normal neuronal network in a hyperexcitable network through multiple mechanisms of altered synaptic and intrinsic plasticity.

The goal of our project is the elucidation of the electrophysiological and molecular mechanisms underlying altered plasticity at the basis of epileptogenesis.

"Right: A hippocampal autaptic neuron grown on a drop of polylisine and collagene and double immunostained, after 18 days in vitro, for the vesicular glutamate trasporter VGLUT-1 (green) and the synaptic vesicle phosphoprotein synapsin I (red)."