Our research focuses on the physiological, pharmacological and anatomical bases of synaptic transmission, with a particular emphasis on cellular substrates of pathological conditions in the Central Nervous System (CNS). Our recent work focuses on three main themes:
synaptic mechanisms in the sensory spinal cord and their plasticity during development and in experimental models of chronic pain;
synaptic changes in the neocortex during ageing and Alzheimer’s disease;
the impact of synaptic activity on the computational properties of neurons.
We use a wide array of approaches, including electrophysiological recording in vivo (micro-optrodes) and in vitro (patch clamp in slices), multiphoton and other non-linear imaging techniques, time-resolved fluorescence microscopy, in vivo optogenetics, tissue-based biochemical analysis, neural tracing and immunocytochemistry, and computational approaches.