She obtained her degree in Biology at the University of Padova and her PhD under the supervision of the CNR neuroscientist Giorgio Carmignoto, investigating how calcium signal in astrocytes regulates gliotransmitter release and functional hyperemia.

Her research group at the CNR Neuroscience Institute in Padua investigates the role of astrocytes in Alzheimer’s Disease mouse models and in the modulation of dopaminergic circuits.

Research interests
Our research interests focus on the characterization of Ca2+ signals in astrocytes from different brain circuits and in different brain pathological states. To pursue our aims, we combine 2 photon imaging, electrophysiological techniques and immunohistochemistry.

Our recent results reveal the contribution of astrocytes to synaptic modulation in the dopaminergic circuits of Ventral Tegmental Area, and the effects of early astrocyte Ca2+ dysregulation on somatosensory synaptic plasticity in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease (B6.152H).

We are actually studying Ca2+ signals in hippocampal astrocytes from α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor knockout mice, characterized by an age-dependent Alzheimer’s disease-like phenotype, and in parallel we are deepening Ca2+ signal characterization in astrocytes from the Ventral Tegmental Area.

In a recently funded Telethon project, we are exploring cerebrovascular function in the B6.152H Alzheimer’s mouse model, to disclose possible links existing between the impairment observed in astrocyte Ca2+ signal and the different aspects of vascular dysfunction commonly reported in Alzheimer’s disease.

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9982-6405

The post Micaela Zonta appeared first on PNC.

He is a biophysicist and neuroscientist. He studied physics, earning an M.Sc in theoretical condense matter physics at the University of Havana, and an M.Sc in high energy physics at the Abdus Salam International Center of Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy. He defended his Ph.D thesis at the University of Trieste, Italy, in 2003, in the field of theoretical particle physics and cosmology, after which he worked at several universities, research institutes and hospitals in Italy, Spain, France and Canada. He is currently a Research Technologist at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Padua, Italy.

His main research interest is the temporal coordination dynamics in the nervous system, and the investigation of the mechanisms and functional role of neuronal oscillations and synchronization in cognition and brain pathologies. He applies mathematical methods and concepts form the fields of nonlinear dynamics, statistical physics and information theory in his research. He has also contributed to the investigation of brain functional connectivity in non-invasive recordings of the human brain (electroencephalography and magnetoencephalography) from the methodological point of view. He has investigated how excessive neuronal synchronization leads to pathologies such as epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease, and the importance of noisy, non-synchronized activity for the emergence of consciousness. Other topics he has investigated includes diffusion processes in decisions making, time perception, stochastic resonance in vision and the role of brain oscillations in speech processing.

His teaching activity includes the Biomedical Modeling course for the Master in Biomedical Engineer at the University Paris Descartes in Paris, France, and the Physics and Biophysics course for the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Padua, held in Treviso, Italy, as well as shorter courses in more specialized topics at the University of Toronto in Canada and the Basque Center for Brain, Cognition and Language, in San Sebastian, Spain.

The post Ramón Guevara appeared first on PNC.

He graduated in Physics in Genova at the end of 1984 and right afterward he joined Roger Tsien laboratory in Berkeley as a post doc where he employed the newly synthetized dye fura2 to measure calcium dynamics in vertebrate photoreceptors during photo response.

After a brief period in Pisa with a fellowship from the Accademia dei Lincei, he moved to Cambridge (UK) until 1992 where he studied the cellular mechanisms of the early development of light sensitivity of mammalian photoreceptors.

He returned to Pisa in 1993 where he eventually joined Lamberto Maffei’s laboratory, and finally he became tenured scientist in 1997 at the Institute of Neuroscience. In 2007 he joined the Institute of Nanoscience CNR located in the applied Physics lab of the Scuola Normale Superiore. There he directed the in vivo physiology lab until 2022, when he joined the Neuroscience Institute in Padua.

His current research interests are relative to the role of circadian rhythm in shaping fast synaptic inhibition and neuronal activity in physiological conditions and in murine models of diseases of the autistic spectra. His tools of the trade includes the development of novel genetically encoded sensor for the study of neuronal function and multielectrode in vivo electrophysiology.

In the last 15 years, he have supervised 12 PhD students at Scuola Normale Superiore and 34 master thesis. Most of these young scientists are still in Academia and some of them have started their own independent lab. Alumni from his lab moved to different positions outside of Italy including University of Wisconsin, Harvard University (Boston, USA), Columbia University (NYC, USA), University College London, Oxford University, Amsterdam University, Yale University, Max Plank Institute (Munich), Umea University (Sweden), Lund University (Sweden), Radboud University, Nijmegen (Netherland).

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She graduated in Neurobiology at the University of Pisa in 2009 under the supervision of Prof Yuri Bozzi. She obtained a PhD in Neurobiology at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa in 2014, working in Prof Matteo Caleo’s lab, where the main focus of her research activity was the study of neuroplasticity mechanisms in physiological and pathological conditions, using the visual system of rodent models.

In 2017, Dr Allegra moved to Paris and joined the laboratory of Prof Christoph Schmidt-Hieber at the Institut Pasteur. Here she was awarded with the Marie Curie individual fellowship and her research activity was mainly focused on the hippocampal function in memory encoding and recall.

In 2020, she was appointed to a permanent research position by the CNR and she joined the Neuroscience Department in Padua, where she has started her own research group with a starting grant from Fondazione CaRiPaRo.

Her main research interest is centered on the field of neuroplasticity, studying the neural mechanisms underlying the capability of the brain to rewire itself in response to environmental pressures and focusing on the hippocampus and neocortex.

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5152-8225

The post Manuela Allegra appeared first on PNC.

She graduated in Medicine (1995) at the University of Pisa Medical School and Sant’ Anna School of Advanced Studies Pisa, Italy, with honors. She then obtained a PhD in Neurobiology (1999) at Sant’ Anna School of Advanced Studies Pisa, Italy, with honors, working on the interplay between neurotrophins and neuronal activity on cortical visual plasticity . She then moved to the USA where she worked as post doc, in LC Katz’s laboratory, HHMI, Duke Neurobiology Durham NC (1999- 2003) and then in JA Gogos’ laboratory, Columbia University NY, NY (2003 – 2005), where she continued to study circuit formation, function and plasticity, mostly in the olfactory system. In 2006, she won the Armenise-Harvard Career Developmental Award and established her laboratory at the Venetian Institute of Molecular Medicine, in Padua (VIMM group leader).

Research interests
The specificity of connections in the nervous system is essential to translate electrical activity into meaningful neuronal codes. We are interested in understanding how an ensemble of neurons wire together to form specific circuits and how these circuits process information. These events are highly dynamics and are deeply affected in pathological conditions. Combining real-time imaging, quantitative anatomy, behaviour and electrophysiology in vivo, we address these questions mostly in the olfactory system and connected areas, both in physiological and pathological conditions.

The post Claudia Lodovichi appeared first on PNC.

Over the last years, I have been involved in studying calcium (Ca2+) signaling in both health and disease. My research focused on the development of new tools to explore the mitochondrial functionality, generating both genetically encoded Ca2+ indicators and a new mitochondria-targeted channelrhodopsin. These methodologies are instrumental for addressing with novel approaches the role of second messenger heterogeneity in different pathophysiological conditions not only in cell cultures, but also ex vivo and in vivo.

Currently, I am interested in studying the role of organelle Ca2+ dynamics in pathophysiology, with a special focus on Alzheimer’s disease.

Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=55838884900&origin=AuthorEval

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