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About Me
I work really hard at failure, and often succeed. Here is my failed website. Here are some failure articles I wrote for my college newspaper. No one has interest in publishing my failed science, which is why I find the possibilities of this site so intriguing.
Plasticity is my game. I used to be interested in how neuromodulators (acetylcholine) gate experience-dependent plasticity on a systems level (cortical map reorganization). That project failed. Now I'm hard at work investigating synaptic plasticity in the motor cortex following skilled motor learning. It's a very exciting and promising study, but I'm pretty sure I know how it will turn out.
strained quad (vastus lateralis)
In my 30 or so years on this planet, I've learned one thing about the meaning of life.
I have an unhealthy obsession with football, especially for a grad student, and especially since the extent of my participation in the sport is the intramural sports league at UC San Diego. But, hey, it is the closest thing we've got to a football team on campus.
While extremely rare, sometimes I feel like this
Because I have so much spare time as a grad student...
Scientific vitals
Neurosciences PhD student at UC San Diego
Current advisors: Mark Tuszynski and Jim Conner
What are the synaptic changes that accompany motor learning? How are inputs to the motor cortex altered with the acquisition of new motor skills? How does the connectivity of intrinsic circuits of the motor cortex change as movements become refined and automatic? These are the questions at the forefront of my brain.
To address them, I am using a rat model of motor skill learning – the skilled forelimb reaching task – wherein rats are trained over a period several days to successfully retrieve a food reward with their forepaw. Using a method developed in our lab, I am able to selectively label neurons in the motor cortex that are specifically altered during training, as well neighboring neurons of the same type that show little/no changes with learning.
Utilizing whole-cell recordings, my aim is to probe these distinct populations for changes specific to “learning-related” neurons. By uncovering the processes that mediate motor learning, our hope is to better understand how the brain rewires itself with learning, and to motivate new treatments for brain trauma, spinal cord injury, and other movement-related disorders.
Previous labs:
- Fernando Nottebohm (Rockefeller University) - Gene expression profiling in the zebra finch song system
- Jennifer Thomas (San Diego State University) - Behavioral neurobiology of alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorders (ARND)
- Philip Langlais (San Diego State University) - Neural roots of learning and memory deficits associated with Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome
