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Organisation

Laboratory of Sleep and Synaptic Plasticity (VIB-KU Leuven)

Lab

Lifecycle:1 Mar 2018 →  Today
Organisation profile:

The computational processes of the brain that direct behavior are only possible because of trillions of synaptic connections between billions of neurons and the connections of the brain to the outside world. We try to elucidate how these connections are established and what is the underlying code of synaptic specificity, stability, plasticity and function.

The questions we tackle are how glial support plays a crucial role, how the sensory input regulates behavioral output, what the role of sleep is at the level of cells and synapses and how defects in the synaptic code that causes the brain to short circuit and result in disease, can be corrected. We also exploit our knowledge of brain wiring to create induced human neuronal circuits in a dish, allowing us to study how neuronal computation is affected in human (neurodegenerative) disease.

Keywords:neurobiology, sleep, synaptic code
Disciplines:Neurosciences