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PBNJ Lab
Physiological and Behavioral
Neuroscience in Juveniles
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Welcome

Hey! You've landed at the PBNJ Lab webpage! No, it's not peanut butter and jelly, . . . it's Physiological and Behavioral Neuroscience in Juveniles, of course!


We study the amazing processes of brain and cognitive development. Mammals are born with incomplete brains. Most of the neurons are there at birth, but they're not all wired together properly. So, we're looking at how this wiring process takes place and how it regulates the developmental emergence of memory. Since your brain has billions of neurons and these neurons can make thousands of connections with each other, the final maturation process is incredibly complex. As such, we look at slightly more simple models, like mice and rats, and try to work out rules that govern synaptic maturation and how they regulate developmental improvements in memory.

The brains of mice and rats mature in a very similar manner to human brains. They are built from the bottom up and mushroom out at the top, with the top structures being the cerebral cortex and hippocampus. These top structures are responsible for your ability to perceive and remember events in your life. We study, primarily, hippocampal development around the time when hippocampal-dependent learning and memory abilities become evident in the animal's behavior, at the end of the third postnatal week (comparable to 2-4 year old humans).

Collaborators:

Within Krasnow Institute
The study of memory in adult rats and genetically-modified mice with the Center for Neural Informatics, Neural Structures, and Neural Plasticity (CN3)
Ascoli lab (Lead Lab) Computational Neuroanatomy Group (CNG)
Blackwell lab (Member Lab) Computational and Experimental Neuroplasticity (CEN) Laboratory

Tardigrades
Cox lab - Molecular Neuroanatomy and Developmental Neurogenics

Within George Mason
Thompson lab - Perception & Action Neuroscience Group (PANG); ARCH Lab
Parasuraman lab - Center for Excellence in Neuroergonomics, Technology, and Cognition (CENTEC); ARCH Lab
Pancrazio lab - Bioengineering
Peixoto lab - Neural Engineering

Stanford University
Sapolsky lab

University of California, Berkeley
Gene Therapy and Maternal Stress
Kaufer lab


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