Research in the Circuits and Systems laboratories in the department focuses on understanding the fundamental mechanisms of circuit and system function and how it contributes to emerging behaviours in health and disease. Laboratories use a combination of cutting-edge optical, genetic, pharmacological and electrophysiological techniques to measure and manipulate brain activity from a variety of cell-types to dissect and interrogate the circuit function.

Common methodological approaches are used in the department to investigate a number of different themes, including sensory systems, hippocampal function, metabolic and cardiovascular physiology, neuroplasticity and learning, and pain. These systems are investigated during development, in adulthood and in ageing, and in different model systems, including rodents and zebrafish, as well as in humans.

These laboratories share common goals of understanding the structure and function of circuits in the brain, how they change and how they underpin behaviour.

Major Themes Include:

• Cardiovascular and Metabolic Neurophysiology
• Synaptic and Circuit Correlates of Behaviour
• Sensory neuroscience
• Developmental Biology
• Neuroplasticity and Learning
• Physiology of Pain

People involved in this research theme:

Recent Papers

Central and peripheral GLP-1 systems independently suppress eating

Pretectal neurons control hunting behaviour

Control of parallel hippocampal output pathways by amygdalar long-range inhibition

Astrocyte Ca ²⁺-evoked ATP release regulates myelinated axon excitability and conduction speed

A Patterned Architecture of Monoaminergic Afferents in the Cerebellar Cortex

Olfaction: Source separation in a single sniff

Widespread nociceptive maps in the human neonatal somatosensory cortex

Proximal and distal spinal neurons innervating multiple synergist and antagonist motor pools

Coordinated Emergence of Hippocampal Replay and Theta Sequences during Post-natal Development

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