ILLUMINATING BRAIN FUNCTION

Research

We study spatiotemporal patterns of neuronal activity that are generated in the brain. This collective neuronal firing not only underlies thought and memory, but also is essential to our understanding of neurological disease. We develop advanced optical techniques for recording neuronal activity in a variety of experimental models to understand how network firing codes for information, is shaped through learning, and becomes altered in diseases of the nervous system.

People

 

Matthew Shtrahman
Principal Investigator

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Matt received his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from the University of Michigan. He returned to his hometown to obtain his MD and PhD degrees at the University of Pittsburgh, where he did his thesis work with Dr. Xiao-lun Wu in the Department of Physics. He completed his residency training and clinical neurophysiology fellowship in the Department of Neurology at UCLA. Matt went on to do his postdoctoral training in the labs of Dr. Tom Otis at UCLA and Dr. Fred Gage at the Salk Institute before joining the faculty of the Department of Neurosciences at UCSD in 2016.

 

Daniel Enterria-Morales
Postdoctoral Fellow

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Samir Saidi
Ph.D. Student

Matthew Shtrahman Portraits - December 8, 2016

Samir is a PhD student in the UCSD Bioengineering Department. He is mainly interested in designing new optical tools to study the brain in vivo. When not in the lab, Samir enjoys training for marathons and attempting to surf.

 

 

Matisse Willardson
Lab Technician and Manager

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Adrian graduated from UCSD with a B.S. in Cognitive & Behavioral Neuroscience. He is interested in many areas of Neuroscience spanning from cellular to systems. Adrian is currently investigating mesial temporal lobe epilepsy, glioblastoma, and AAV. He plans on pursuing a Ph.D. in Neuroscience. When not in lab, Adrian enjoys backpacking, cooking, and learning about new tech.

Cris Sharp
R&D Engineer

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Volunteers

Emeen Al-Delaimy

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Rebecca Ha

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Jamie Hur

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Kristen Kawashima

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Vidisha Marwaha

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Monica Jensen

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Srija Pamujula

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Robert Parsons

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Robert is an undergraduate at UCSD completing a B.S. in Cognitive Science with a specialization in Neuroscience. He is interested in researching neurological and behavioral illnesses with a focus on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Robert is currently investigating AAV-induced ablation of neurogenesis and really enjoys studying interactions between neural progenitor cells and viruses. He aspires to become a Ph.D. student to further his interests in said research. In his free time, Robert, enjoys playing tennis, chess, bouldering, and rock climbing.

Janine Rho

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Amanda Sirisoma

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Nolan Soutipan

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Kristian Maniti

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Brandon Tse

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Tomosuke Yamaguchi

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Alumni

Summer Batasin

Dev Bhatia

Cooper Bloyd – Currently a medical student at UC San Francisco School of Medicine.

Derek Cai – Currently at Twist Biosciences.

Achol Chowdhury

Bryan Ha

Shannon Kee – Currently a medical student at UT Health San Antonio.

Stacy Kim – Currently a PhD student in the department of Cognitive Science at UCSD.

Nolan Mac

Alexandr Newberry

Joseph Newhide

Dennis Ren – Currently an Electrical Engineer at Freeform.

Bryan Ryba – Currently a resident physician in Neurological Surgery at UCSD.

Clyde Sanvictores

Sharon Sengphanith – Currently at BioLegend.

Prithvi Setty

Lauren Stiene

Shuhe Wang – Currently a SRA at UCSD in the lab of Dr. Jong Rho.

Emily Yan – Currently a medical student at Dell Medical School, UT Austin.

Tammy Zhou

 

 

 

Publications

Stephen Johnston, Sarah L Parylak, Stacy Kim, Nolan Mac, Christina Lim, Iryna Gallina, Cooper Bloyd, Alexander Newberry, Christian D Saavedra, Ondrej Novak, J Tiago Gonçalves, Fred H Gage, Matthew Shtrahman. AAV ablates neurogenesis in the adult murine hippocampus. eLife 2021;10:e59291. PDF

Tristan Shuman, Daniel Aharoni, Denise J. Cai, Christopher R. Lee, Spyridon Chavlis, Lucia Page-Harley, Lauren M. Vetere, Yu Feng, Chen Yi Yang, Irene Mollinedo-Gajate, Lingxuan Chen, Zachary T. Pennington, Jiannis Taxidis, Sergio E. Flores, Kevin Cheng, Milad Javaherian, Christina C. Kaba, Naina Rao, Mimi La-Vu, Ioanna Pandi, Matthew Shtrahman, Konstantin I. Bakhurin, Sotiris C. Masmanidis, Baljit S. Khakh, Panayiota Poirazi, Alcino J. Silva & Peyman Golshani. Breakdown of spatial coding and interneuron synchronization in epileptic mice. Nat Neurosci 23, 229–238 (2020). PMID: 31907437. PDF

ST Johnston, SL Parylak, S Kim, N Mac, CK Lim, IS Gallina, CW Bloyd, A Newberry, CD Saavedra, O Novák, JT Gonçalves, FH Gage, M Shtrahman. AAV Ablates Neurogenesis in the Adult Murine Hippocampus. bioRxiv 2020.01.18.911362. PDF

Poo MM, Pignatelli M, Ryan TJ, Tonegawa S, Bonhoeffer T, Martin KC, Rudenko A, Tsai LH, Tsien RW, Fishell G, Mullins C, Gonçalves JT, Shtrahman M, Johnston ST, Gage FH, Dan Y, Long J, Buzsáki G, Stevens C. What is memory? The present state of the engram. BMC Biol. 2016; 14(1):40. PMID: 27197636. PDF

Gonçalves JT, Bloyd CW, Shtrahman M, Johnston ST, Schafer ST, Parylak SL, Tran T, Chang T, Gage FH. In vivo imaging of dendritic pruning in dentate granule cells. Nat Neurosci. 2016 Jun; 19(6):788-91. PMID: 27135217. PDF

Johnston ST, Shtrahman M, Parylak S, Gonçalves JT, Gage FH. Paradox of pattern separation and adult neurogenesis: A dual role for new neurons balancing memory resolution and robustness. Neurobiol Learn Mem. 2016 Mar; 129:60-8. PMID: 26549627. PDF

Shtrahman M, Aharoni DB, Hardy NF, Buonomano DV, Arisaka K, Otis TS. Multifocal fluorescence microscope for fast optical recordings of neuronal action potentials. Biophys J. 2015 Feb 3; 108(3):520-9. PMID: 25650920. PDF

Mostany R, Miquelajauregui A, Shtrahman M, Portera-Cailliau C. Two-photon excitation microscopy and its applications in neuroscience. Methods Mol Biol. 2015; 1251:25-42. PMID: 25391792. PDF

Yeung C, Shtrahman M, Wu XL. Stick-and-diffuse and caged diffusion: a comparison of two models of synaptic vesicle dynamics. Biophys J. 2007 Apr 1; 92(7):2271-80. PMID: 17218458. PDF

Shtrahman M, Yeung C, Nauen DW, Bi GQ, Wu XL. Probing vesicle dynamics in single hippocampal synapses. Biophys J. 2005 Nov; 89(5):3615-27. PMID: 16113110. PDF

 

 

 

Funding

Our research would not be possible without funding from the following sources:

CBAM

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