Current Research

Your brain defines who you are - your mood, your memories, your likes and dislikes. Thus, understanding how the brain works is, fundamentally, about understanding yourself. A moment's introspection will reveal just how challenging this task will be.

We are tackling this question - how does the brain work? - by taking a reductionist approach. We study the individual nerve cells, or neurons, that constitute the basic functional units of the nervous system. In most of our experiments we examine cultures or thin slices of brain tissue taken from rats or mice. We use a variety of electrophysiological and imaging techniques to measure the intrinsic properties of neurons, as well as the ways in which neurons communicate with each other via synapses. Eventually we hope to assemble this information into a coherent picture of how the brain as a whole might operate.

Currently we are working on two main projects.

• How the brain processes odours in the primary olfactory cortex.
The sense of smell is a relatively primitive sense, which is reflected in the comparatively simple anatomy of the brain regions involved in processing odours. Using patch clamping and confocal imaging in thin slices of mouse olfactory cortex, we are characterising the cortical neurons involved in olfactory processing. By first focusing on this relatively simple region of the cerebral cortex, we hope to shed light on how other, more complex, areas of the brain are able to process sensory information.

• How synapses are able to efficiently transmit electrical signals.
The flow of information between neurons at synapses depends on the efficient release and detection of chemical neurotransmitters. Using rodent hippocampal neurons grown in cell culture, we are studying the factors that determine the efficiency of neurotransmitter release from presynaptic terminals. To do this, we are developing novel assays of the presynaptic vesicle cycle. This work is fundamental to understanding the rate at which information can flow between neurons in the brain.