Hongjun Song (Johns Hopkins University) – September 20th, 2013

Neuroscience Seminar Series :

Hongjun Song – Johns Hopkins University

‘Circuit mechanisms regulating adult neural stem cells and neurogenesis’

Video of the event (restricted to Paris descartes members).

Hongjun Song, Johns Hopkins University : « Circuit mechanisms regulating adult neural stem cells and neurogenesis ». Adult neurogenesis arises from neural stem cells within specialized niches. Neuronal activity and experience, presumably acting on this local niche, regulate multiple stages of adult neurogenesis, from neural stem cell activation, neural progenitor proliferation to new neuron maturation, synaptic integration and survival. I will present our recent studies using slice electrophysiology, immunohistology, genetic lineage tracing and manipulation and optogenetics to identify a novel niche mechanism involving parvalbumin-expressing interneurons that couples local circuit activity to diametric regulation of two critical early sequential phases of adult hippocampal neurogenesis.