Mechanisms of experience-dependent hippocampal neurogenesis

我的NSERC资助的研究项目解决了生活经验如何塑造大脑结构和功能的问题。可塑性，或被生活经验动态改变的能力，是大脑的定义特征之一。神经干细胞在海马体中产生新的神经元，海马体是一种参与学习、记忆和情感的结构，是可塑性的一种形式。通过专注于海马神经发生的这一过程，我们的长期目标是开发一个从行为到基因的综合模型，说明生活经验如何调节大脑功能。

My NSERC-funded research program tackles the question of how life experience shapes brain structure and function. Plasticity, or the ability to be dynamically changed by life experience, is one of the brain’s defining features. The production of new neurons by neural stem cells in the hippocampus, a structure involved in learning, memory and emotion, is one such form of plasticity. By focusing on this process of hippocampal neurogenesis, our long-term goal is to develop an integrated model, from behaviour to genes, of how life experience regulates brain function.