[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.25.3″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.25.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.25.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.25.3″]
Postdoc candidate talk
Adele Bubnys, Ph.D; Biomedical sciences
The Rockefeller University, New York, NY
Abstract
As the capacity to isolate distinct neuronal cell types has advanced over the past several decades, new two- and three-dimensional in vitro models of the interactions between different
brain regions have expanded our understanding of human neurobiology and origins of disease.
These cultures develop distinctive patterns of activity, but the extent that these patterns are
determined by the molecular identity of individual cell types versus the specific pattern of network connectivity is unclear.
To address the question of how individual cell types interact in vitro, we developed a simplified culture using two purified excitatory neuronal subtypes known to participate in the in vivo reticulospinal circuit: HB9 + spinal motor neurons and Chx10 + hindbrain neurons. We found that these cultures developed cell type-specific patterns of activity and, when combined in a coculture, Chx10 + neurons could induce patterned rhythmic activity in motor neurons that is consistent with these reticulospinal neurons’ role in driving locomotion. In addition to demonstrating that the activity of in vitro networks can depend on the developmental identity of their constituent neurons, this study provides a new model to study the activity of a reticulospinal circuit with genetically specified nerve cell types.
Bio
I received my BA in molecular biology and neuroscience from Wesleyan University in 2014.
While there, I got my start in research working in the laboratory of Richard Olson, studying the
relationship between the protein structure and cell targeting specificity of a pore forming toxin
from the Cholera bacterium. I completed my PhD in biomedical sciences at the Rockefeller
University in June 2019, where I worked in the laboratory of Donald Pfaff studying the
mechanisms of brainstem control of behavioral arousal. I applied my long-standing interest in
the relationship between the physical structure and function of biological systems to the level
of neuronal circuits and used cell type-specific cultures to construct a reticulospinal circuit in a
dish. This work has demonstrated that different excitatory cell types generate distinctive
patterns of network activity even when cultured outside the context of the intact nervous
system. Having worked extensively with two-dimensional cell cultures, I’m now interested in
studying how network activity emerges in three-dimensional organoids, with a particular focus
on modeling neuropsychiatric disorders.
Host
David Haussler
To accommodate a disability, please contact Ben Coffey at the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute (becoffey@ucsc.edu, 831-459-1477).
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]