Brandeis University has a highly interactive research culture, with many cross-lab interactions and collaborations. This interactive culture begins with the rotation program: all first-year PhD students perform rotations in 4 research labs.

Brandeis has significant expertise in behavioral/cognitive neuroscience, cellular and molecular neuroscience, computational neuroscience and systems neuroscience (including the Sloan-Swartz Center for Theoretical Neuroscience), and developmental neuroscience.

Web Information

Website:   http://www.bio.brandeis.edu/grad/neuro/index.html BRAIN Grant – “Combining genetics, genomics, and anatomy to classify cell types across mammals”

Contact Information

Email: scigradoffice @ brandeis.edu Phone: (781) 736-2000 Address:415 South Street, Waltham, MA

Graduate Program

The Graduate Program in Neuroscience brings together students from a variety of intellectual backgrounds — including biology, computer science, chemistry, engineering, genetics, physics, and psychology — who conduct interdisciplinary research to understand the fundamental principles of the nervous system.

Students entering the Neuroscience Program at Brandeis have opportunities to work in a range of fields, including cognitive neuroscience in humans, neurophysiology in behaving animals, the physiology and theory of synapses and networks, the structure and function of ion channels, and the neurogenetics of behavior. Brandeis has significant expertise inbehavioral/cognitive neuroscience, cellular and molecular neuroscience, computational neuroscience and systems neuroscience (including the Sloan-Swartz Center for Theoretical Neuroscience), and developmental neuroscience.

Brandeis University is an ...

Principal Investigator: Sacha B. Nelson Brandeis University Title: Combining genetics, genomics, and anatomy to classify cell types across mammals” BRAIN Category: Census of Cell Types (RFA MH-14-215)

To gain a deeper understanding of how cells have evolved specialized features, Dr. Nelson and colleagues will create transgenic strains of rats and mice that carry identical genetic modifications in many different cell types and see how the properties of these cells diverge across species.

Two mice expressing enhanced green fluorescent protein under UV-illumination flanking one plain mouse from the non-transgenic parental line. Source: wikipedia

NIH webpage

Project Description

Recent genetic advances have driven significant progress in scientists’ abilities to classify and map neuronal cell types within the brains of mode organisms like laboratory mice. To better delineate neuronal cell types in the human brain, however, it is critical to have a deeper understanding of the way that neuronal cell types evolve across mammals. As a first step toward achieving this understanding, corresponding neuronal cell types will be directly compared in two closely related mammalian species: mice and rats. By closely examining differences in the properties of these cells, including the genes they express, we hope to identify genomic elements that control the properties ...

Professor of Neuroscienc, Brandeis University Member of the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director

Marder studies the dynamics of small neuronal networks, and her work was instrumental in demonstrating that neuronal circuits are not “hard-wired” but can be reconfigured by neuromodulatory neurons and substances to produce a variety of outputs.  Her lab pioneered studies of homeostatic regulation of intrinsic membrane properties, and stimulated work on the mechanisms by which brains remain stable while allowing for change during development and learning.

Web Information

Faculty Webpage: bio.brandeis.edu/faculty/marder.html

Lab Webpage:  blogs.brandeis.edu/marderlab/

Wikipedia Entry:  wikipedia.org/wiki/Eve_Marder

Contact Information

Email: marder@brandeis.edu

Phone: 781-736-3140

Address: Volen National Center for Complex Systems, 314

Research

One of the fundamental problems in neuroscience is understanding how circuit function arises from the intrinsic properties of individual neurons and their synaptic connections. Of particular interest to us today is the extent to which similar circuit outputs can be generated by multiple mechanisms, both in different individual animals, or in the same animal over its life-time. As an experimental preparation we exploit the advantages of the central pattern generating circuits in the crustacean stomatogastric nervous system. Central pattern generators are groups of neurons found in vertebrate and invertebrate nervous systems responsible for the generation of specific rhythmic behaviors such as walking, swimming, ...

Principal Investigator: Sacha B. Nelson Brandeis University

Despite their functional and clinical importance, the cell types that comprise the neocortex and the molecular mechanisms that specify their properties and connectivity are only partly understood. Nelson Lab studies the development and function of the neocortex in the laboratory mouse using a combination of genetic, genomic and electrophysiological approaches.

In our approach to examining the neocortex we use new driver strains developed here and by our collaborators to genetically or virally deliver mutant alleles to specific neuronal cell types. We monitor effects on physiology and connectivity using patch clamp recording and high resolution anatomy. To evaluate changes in gene expression we developed methods for manually sorting fluorescent neurons and performing genome-wide expression profiling. Nelson Lab

Web Information

Website: bio.brandeis.edu/nelsonlab/ Brain Initiative Grant

Contact Information

Email: nelson@brandeis.ed Phone: (781) 736-3181 Address: Brandeis University 415 South Street, Waltham, MA 02454 Shapiro Science Center Room 1-15

Research

The Nelson Lab is located in the recently constructed Shapiro Science Center at Brandeis University located in Waltham, Massachusetts and is a member of the National Center for Behavioral Genomics. We are primarily interested in examining the mammalian neocortex. Our lab combines electrophysiology, advanced imaging techniques, mouse genetics and high throughput gene expression analysis allowing us ...

Professor of Biology, Brandeis University Director, Nelson Lab

Sacha Nelson’s research focuses on understanding the cell types and circuits that comprise the mammalian neocortex, and how these circuits are altered by normal experience and during disease. His work employs a combination of electrophysiology, anatomy and mouse genetics and genomics to define cortical cell types and to identify alterations in cortical connectivity in epilepsy and autism spectrum disorders.

Web Information

Webpage:   http://www.bio.brandeis.edu/faculty/nelson.html Brain Initiative Grant

Contact Information

Email: nelson@brandeis.edu Phone: 781-736-3181 Address: Carl J. Shapiro Science Center, 1-21

Biography

B.A., B.S., Brown University M.D., University of California, San Diego Ph.D., University of California, San Diego

Research

The mammalian neocortex is our most complex organ and plays an indispensable role in many human behaviors. Impaired function of cortical circuits are central to a diverse set of neurological and psychiatric diseases including autism spectrum disorders, epilepsy, schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease.  Despite their functional and clinical importance, the cell types that comprise the neocortex and the molecular mechanisms that specify their properties and connectivity are only partly understood. We study the development and function of the neocortex in the laboratory mouse using a combination of genetic, genomic and electrophysiological approaches. Question that we focus on include: “What genetic and epigenetic mechanisms allow different cell ...