Biomedicine Seminar: The necessity of neuron diversity for brain function in health and disease

Marco Capogna will give a seminar on basic concepts of neuronal circuits and neuron type diversity and essential methods of investigation such as electrophysiology, optogenetic and high resolution anatomy. Then, he will focus on the contribution of nerve cell types to cortical and amygdala brain circuits in health and in animal models of psychiatric disorders. The speaker will show that different types of GABAergic cells contribute differently to brain rhythms associated with memory, sleep and arousal. Furthermore, he will demonstrate that synaptic events elicited by various neuron types display distinct features that are critical in determining their modulation of neuronal networks. Finally, the role of neuron types in human cortical circuits will be briefly discussed.