Dr. Benjamin Philpot University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
2008
Restoration of neocortial plasticity in a mouse model of Angelman Syndrome
$95,000
An important question about the developmental problems in AS is to what extent neurons change based on experience and how this is impaired in AS. One way to understand this is to use the Angelman mouse model to study neurons in the occipital visual cortex and determine how they adjust and adapt to new visual stimuli . The work involved measuring cell activity using exquisite methods of micro manipulation and electrical recordings of individual neurons.
This work was important in establishing that under certain experimental conditions the neurons from mice with AS were capable of achieving relatively normal electrophysiological activity.
This project was funded in collaboration with Michael Ehlers, PhD.