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Sensory processing and epilepsy: Insights from a primitive cortex

Hosted by: Professor Ian Cockburn

Biography

I completed my PhD at Cambridge University and the Marine Biology Lab in Plymouth, England, working on ion channels in the squid giant axon.  My postdoc years were spent at Yale Medical School and the Salk Institute, La Jolla, where I studied synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus.  In the early 1990s I moved back to Australia with an ARC Fellowship, setting up my lab in a very small room in the old JCSMR building. Apart from several sabbaticals in London and Heidelberg, I’ve been at JCSMR ever since.  My research addresses fundamental questions about synaptic integration and how it underpins information-processing in the brain.  I also have a long-standing interest in the cellular basis of epilepsy.  In my free time, I enjoy hiking in beautiful parts of the world, including in the mountains around Canberra.