MNN Visiting Speaker – Dr. Jaideep Bains – World Wide Neuro

SPEAKER

Jaideep Bains, PhD
Professor, University of Calgary, Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology

RESEARCH
Survival is predicated on the ability of an organism to re-spond to stress. The reliability of this response is ensured by a synaptic architecture that is relatively inflexible (i.e. hard-wired). Our work has shown that in naive animals, synapses on CRH neurons in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypo-thalamus are very reluctant to modification. If animals are stressed, however, these synapses become willing to learn. This seminar will focus on mechanisms linking acute stress to metaplastic changes at glutamate synapses, and also show how stress, and these synaptic changes can be trans-mitted from one individual to another.