Juan Burrone

Guest speaker: Juan Burrone
Professor of Developmental Neurophysiology
Centre for Developmental Neurobiology
King’s College London.

Title: Brain stability during circuit wiring: inhibition along different subcellular
compartments.

Abstract:
A fundamental question in neuroscience is to understand how excitatory and inhibitory neurons in the brain wire up during development. This highly dynamic period of brain development neatly encapsulates a key question in the field: how do circuits remain stable in the face of unrelenting change? Here, I will explore the rules behind the formation and plasticity of inhibitory synapses during the period of brain wiring. Specifically, I will focus on the inhibitory synapses formed onto two different subcellular compartments of pyramidal neurons: the dendritic tree and the axon initial segment. I will argue that although it is likely that rules vary across interneuron type depending on their subcellular target, they all serve to stabilise neuronal activity in the brain.