Alison Barth
Carnegie Mellon University, PA·Neuroscience
Much of learning comes down to noticing that a sensation predicts something good, such as a touch that signals water is coming. In the neocortex, the brain's outer layer, this kind of learning depends on changes at synapses, the connections between neurons.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Biology
- Topics
neuroscience
neocortex
barrel cortex
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jan 2031
What they work on
- Map the circuit connections of a molecularly defined subtype of somatostatin (SST) inhibitory neurons in superficial mouse sensory cortex, and how they change during whisker-reward learning, using cell-type- and pathway-specific brain slice recordings.
- Follow the same SST neurons across learning with calcium imaging in head-fixed mice, changing stimulus-reward rules during training to test how prediction, expectation and surprise shape their responses.
- Test whether the neuromodulators norepinephrine and serotonin regulate the learning-related changes in SST neuron activity that appear when a whisker stimulus predicts a reward.
- Test whether parvalbumin (PV) inhibitory neurons are a dominant regulator of touch-evoked activity in mouse barrel cortex, combining recordings in living mice and acute brain slices during sensory association learning.
- Test the hypothesis that reward-related acetylcholine release indirectly suppresses PV neuron firing. This would reduce inhibitory output onto pyramidal neurons and let excitatory synapses strengthen early in learning.
More about the research
Those changes are held in check by inhibitory neurons, which release the chemical messenger GABA to quiet their neighbors. Inhibition keeps circuits stable and prevents runaway excitation like that seen in epilepsy. Yet it must be eased, at least briefly, for learning to happen. Both projects train mice to link a whisker touch with a water reward. They ask how specific types of inhibitory neurons change during learning, and which brain-wide signals drive those changes.
Why it matters
Dysfunction in somatostatin interneurons is linked to schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease, and inhibition in the cortex guards against the runaway excitation seen in epilepsy. This work identifies how specific inhibitory neurons and neuromodulators let the cortex connect sensory input with reward. That adds basic knowledge of how learning happens in mammalian brain circuits. It could eventually inform research on these disorders and strategies for learning across species.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Gordon J Fishell
Harvard University, MA·Neuroscience
Determine which target cells SST interneurons in granular versus infragranular cortical layers connect to, and how development sets up this selectivity, using anatomical and optogenetic circuit mapping.
Barna Dudok
Baylor College of Medicine, TX·Neuroscience·Early-career
Test whether CCK and PV basket cells, two types of inhibitory neurons, are active in different brain states in a kainate mouse model of temporal lobe epilepsy, using two-photon calcium imaging with hippocampal field recordings.
Matthew J.M. Rowan
Emory University, GA·Neuroscience
Develop enhancer-AAVs, viruses carrying cell-type-selective DNA switches, that label dentate gyrus granule cells, and convert the best candidates into optogenetic and chemogenetic variants for controlling these neurons.
The school
Carnegie Mellon University: 28 labs on PI Pages, $505M a year on research, 346 research doctorates a year.
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