Professor Eve Marder (Brandeis): Cryptic changes from perturbations and climate change shape neurons School of Psychology and Neuroscience Friday seminar series

The School of Psychology and Neuroscience seminar series presents a talk by Professor Eve Marder (Brandeis) titled ‘Cryptic (hidden) changes that result from perturbations and climate change shape future dynamics of degenerate neurons and circuits', which will be hosted by Dr Stefan Pulver online through MS Teams.

A fundamental problem in neuroscience is understanding how the properties of individual neurons and synapses contribute to neuronal circuit dynamics and behaviour. In recent years Eve and her team have done both computational and experimental studies that demonstrate that the same physiological output can arise from multiple, degenerate solutions, and that individual animals with similar behaviour can nonetheless have quite different sets of underlying circuit parameters.

Most recently, they have been studying the resilience of individual animals to perturbations such as temperature and high potassium concentrations. This has revealed that extreme environmental experiences can produce long-term changes in circuit performance that can be hidden, or ‘cryptic' unless the animals are again challenged or perturbed.

Eve's current work is designed to understand differential resilience in natural, wild-caught animals in response to climate change, and shows long-lasting influences of the animals' temperature history.