The aim of the Neuronal Integration Laboratory is to understand the mechanisms that neurons use to integrate the many thousands of synaptic inputs they receive. This process is called synaptic integration and ultimately leads to the generation of a nerve impulse or action potential. As most of the synaptic input to neurons is made onto fine structures called dendrites one of the main areas of interest is the properties and function of the dendritic tree. We are currently investigating synaptic integration in a number of morphologically distinct central neurons using techniques such as visualized patch clamp recording in brain slices, Ca imaging, neuronal modeling and immunocytochemistry.
 

Contact details

• Greg Stuart, PhD
• email:  Greg.Stuart@anu.edu.au
• phone:  61-2-6125-8927
• fax:  61-2-6125-2687

Group members

Greg Stuart

Maarten Kole (Postdoctoral Fellow)

Jean-Didier Breton (Postdoctoral Fellow)

Lucy Palmer (Postdoctoral Fellow)

Helen Gooch (Honours Student)

 

Collaborators Michael Häusser (University College London)
Nelson Spruston (Northwestern University, Chicago)

Edited by:

Greg Stuart, Nelson Spruston and Michael Häusser

• Kole, MHP, Ilschner. SU, Kampa, BM, Williams, SR, Ruben, PC and Stuart, GJ.(2008) Action potential generation requires a high sodium channel density in the axon initial segment. Nature Neuroscience 11, 178 - 186.

• Kampa BM, Letzkus JJ, Stuart GJ. (2007) Dendritic mechanisms controlling spike-timing-dependent synaptic plasticity. Trends in Neuroscience 30,456-63.

• Kole, MHP, Letzkus, JJ, and Stuart, GJ. (2007) Axon initial segment Kv1channels control axonal action potential waveform and synaptic efficacy.Neuron 55, 633-647.

• Palmer, LM and Stuart, GJ. (2006) Site of action potential initiation in layer 5 pyramidal neurons. Journal of Neuroscience 26, 1854-63.

• Letzkus, JJ, Kampa, BM, and Stuart, GJ. (2006) Learning rules for spike timing-dependent plasticity depend on dendritic synapse location. Journal of Neuroscience 26, 10420-10429.

• Kampa, B.M., Letzkus, J.J., and Stuart, G.J. (2006) Cortical feed-forward networks for binding different streams of sensory information. Nature Neuroscience 9, 1472-1473.

• Kampa, BM, Letzkus, JJ, and Stuart, GJ. (2006) Requirement of dendritic calcium spikes for induction of spike-timing-dependent synaptic plasticity. Journal of Physiology 574, 283-290.