Centre for Neuroscience
The Centre for Neuroscience (CN) acts as a bridge from basic neuroscience to both clinical neuroscience and experimental psychology. The centre focuses on topical translational themes: Spinal cord and brainstem circuits that underlie pain, motor control and breathing; psychiatric and neuro-developmental conditions such as schizophrenia, stress and Rett syndrome; molecular mechanisms of synaptic transmission and plasticity; circadian rhythms; visual perception; cyclic nucleotide signal transduction; neural circuit basis of information processing, learning, and decision-making.
History
The CN was formed in 2010, together with the INP, to provide a focus for preclinical and translational neuroscience, and hence to exploit the evolving opportunities for translational and inter-disciplinary research within INP.
Principal Investigators
Spinal Cord Group
Hachisuka, Hughes, Maxwell, Riddell, Todd, Weir
Brain Circuits Group
Experimental Approaches
Anatomical (e.g. immunocytochemistry, tract-tracing, confocal/electron microscopy), electrophysiological (in vivo and in vitro recording, patch-clamp, optogenetics), molecular biological (molecular genetics, functional genomics), behavioural (cognition, learning, decision-making, pain, respiration, stress), and imaging (multi-photon and mini-scope in vivo).
Grant Highlights
(Since 2008): £9.6 M have been obtained in competitive funding (Wellcome, BBSRC, MRC, Pfizer, Scottish enterprise), including two recent project grants (BBSRC, MRC) and part of a Wellcome Strategic Award on spinal pain pathways to Todd (overall £5.8M).
Publication Highlights
(2008-2013): The Centre has published more than 220 papers, cited 3300 times including leading Journals (Nat Rev Drug Discov article, Nature, Nat Rev Neurosci).
Sample Publications
- Pratt, J., Winchester, C., Dawson, N., and Morris, B.J. (2012) Advancing schizophrenia drug discovery: optimizing rodent models to bridge the translational gap. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, 11 (7). pp. 560-579. (doi:10.1038/nrd3649)
- Goense, J., Merkle, H., and Logothetis, N.K. (2012) High-resolution fMRI reveals laminar differences in neurovascular coupling between positive and negative BOLD responses. Neuron, 76 (3). pp. 629-639. (doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2012.09.019)
- Todd, A.J. (2010) Neuronal circuitry for pain processing in the dorsal horn. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11 (12). pp. 823-836. (doi:10.1038/nrn2947)