Faculty member Lisa Boulanger https://www-dept-edit.princeton.edu/neuroscience/people/display_person.xml?netid=960483227&display=All and her lab have shown that specific immune proteins unexpectedly regulate communication between individual neurons in the mammalian brain. By examining mice genetically deficient for proteins of the major histocompatibility complex class I (MHCI), the scientists found that these immune proteins act as a brake on synaptic transmission mediated by the NMDA
Archive – December 2010
PNI faculty member David Tank (http://www.genomics.princeton.edu/tank/Index.html) and his lab have developed a new optics-based method to monitor the activity of populations of neurons in the awake mouse hippocampus as the mouse runs a maze. The method combines two-photon laser scanning microscopy, genetically encoded calcium sensors, and a virtual reality system based on video game technology. The method provides movies of the activity of many individual neurons in circuits in the mammalian bra