dr-liam-browne

Dr Liam Browne

WIBR Seminar

'Dissection of spinal reflex behaviours'

Dr Liam Browne

(Marie Curie Research Fellow, WIBR, UCL) 

Host: Professor John Wood

The ability to avoid harm is critical for biological survival. Potentially harmful environmental stimuli activate primary afferent nociceptor neurons that drive the rapid withdrawal spinal reflexes described by Sherrington over a century ago.

Here I will describe how advanced methods have been used to define the nature, extent, timing and coordination of such reflexes; revealing a modular architecture of simultaneously initiated, widespread behaviour that provides a framework for rapid but nuanced and oriented protective behavioural choices.

I will also discuss a new method to engineer endogenous ion channels for control with light, whereby one wavelength rapidly opens the channel and another wavelength closes the channel. This will allow dissection of their specific functional roles in innate protective behaviours.

Links

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/wibr/research/molecular-nociception-group

https://iris.ucl.ac.uk/iris/browse/profile?upi=LBROW57

Download poster

Date: Thursday 3rd March 2016
Time: 4pm (please arrive 15 mins before start) 
Venue: Cruciform Café, 1st Floor Cruciform Building, Gower Street, UCL, WC1E 6BT

Refreshments will be provided