Dr Mick Craig
- Senior Lecturer (Centre for Neuroscience)
Research interests
Research Overview
I am a neurophysiologist interested in how interneurons can control synchronous neuronal network activity, and how different brain regions coordinate their activity across long distances. While comprising only a small percentage of cortical neurons, inhibitory interneurons play a fundamental role in coordinating and pacing the rhythm of neuronal oscillations. My previous work has included studying slow oscillations in sensory and entorhinal cortices, and faster rhythms (gamma oscillations and sharp-wave ripples) in the hippocampus.
The research in my group uses a combination of behavioural, in vivo and in vitro electrophysiological and optogenetic methods to understand the cellular circuitry through which different brain regions communicate across long distances. We are also interested in studying how these long-range projections are disrupted in psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders.
Biography
I completed my undergraduate degree in Neuroscience at the University of Glasgow in 2006. This degree included a year in the pharmaceutical industry, where I carried out schizophrenia research at Merck, Sharp and Dohme in Harlow, Essex. I then moved to the University of Oxford to study on a four year Wellcome Trust DPhil in the OXION programme, working with Prof Ole Paulsen and Dr Louise Upton, graduating in 2011.
In the final year of mys doctoral studies, Prof Paulsen moved to the University of Cambridge to take up the Chair of Physiology, so after completing my DPhil, I spent a few months in Cambridge before moving to the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, USA) in 2011, to work as a Postdoctoral Visiting Fellow in the group of Dr Chris McBain.
I moved back to the UK in early 2016 to establish my research group at the University of Exeter on an early career fellowship funded by the Vandervell Foundation, before taking up a Senior Lecturer position here in Glasgow in 2020.
Grants
Grants and Awards listed are those received whilst working with the University of Glasgow.
- Developing a novel model of Lewy Body Dementia
Alzheimer`s Research UK
2022 - 2023
Teaching
COURSES
- MSc Brain Sciences: Fundamentals of Neuroscience Research
- MSc Brain Sciences: Animal Models of Disease and Function (Course Leader)
Professional activities & recognition
Prizes, awards & distinctions
- 2023: Preprint Award (ASAPBio)
Research fellowships
- 2016 - 2019: Vandervell Fellowship
Grant committees & research advisory boards
- 2021 - 2021: Medical Research Council (MRC), Neuroimmunology Data Generation Award for ECRs
Professional & learned societies
- 2006: Member, British Neuroscience Association
- 2012: Member, Physiological Society
- 2022: Member, British Association for Psychopharmacologists