Research line
Excitation-inhibition imbalance, the VPA model, and the circuit-level overlap between autism and epilepsy.
Our autism research uses the valproic acid (VPA) rat model to study how excitation-inhibition imbalance in the hippocampus contributes to the behavioral phenotypes associated with autism spectrum disorder. We have shown that dentate gyrus granule cells display altered excitability in this model, and our current work examines the role of NKCC1 in the generation of epileptic seizures within this autism model — reflecting the well-known clinical overlap between autism and epilepsy, and placing this line at the intersection of our other two research areas.
Related work in the lab also studies metabotropic glutamate receptor signaling in the sensory cortex using the FMR1 (fragile X syndrome) model, extending our interest in excitation-inhibition balance to another genetically defined model of neurodevelopmental disorder.