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
Control of parallel hippocampal output pathways by amygdalar long-range inhibition
Astrocyte Ca 2+-evoked ATP release regulates myelinated axon excitability and conduction speed
Learn More
David Attwell: UK DRI – The role of capillary pericytes in health, stroke and Alzheimer’s disease
David Attwell: Physiology 2021: Annual Review Prize Lecture
Francesca Cacucci: The post-natal development of the hippocampal networks for memory and space
Lorenzo Fabrizi: Interview with the Medical Research Foundation
Maria Fitzgerald: Ethical issues of neuroscientific studies on fetuses and newly born babies
Marie Holt (Trapp Lab): Mind affects matter – brainstem circuits linking stress, physiology, and behaviour
Tara Keck: Neuroplasticity in Isolation and Loneliness
Stephanie Koch: Touch, pain and itch
Listen
- Can I think myself thin? David Attwell on the Naked Scientists
- At what point are babies able to sense touch? Stephanie Koch on the Naked Scientists
- How the brain weighs evidence and makes decisions: Andrew Macaskill on UCL’s Brain Stories Podcast
Contact Us
Research Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology
University College London
Darwin Building, Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT
For general enquiries email the department Executive Assistant