Alison Barth

Research in the Barth Lab is focused on understanding how experience assembles and alters the properties of neural circuits in the cerebral cortex, in both normal and disease states. The lab has a specific focus on somatosensation in the mouse model system, where specific types of sensory input from the skin are used to drive neural activity to change the strength of synaptic connections and the firing output of cortical neurons. This neural plasticity can result in enhanced perceptual capabilities and influence subsequent learning. A detailed examination of how synapses are changed by experience is revealing fundamental principles about both perception and learning across many neural systems. In addition, researchers in the lab are using electrophysiological recordings, electron microscopy, and computational modeling to understand how functional networks are constructed and optimized in the neocortex. Experiments take advantage of transgenic mice to manipulate gene expression and label defined neural subsets and whole-cell recording and imaging to quantitate the electrical properties of cortical neurons.