Summary
My group investigates why the aged brain is vulnerable to neurodegeneration and asks whether we can alleviate this susceptibility. We focus on the role of key homeostatic neural-circuit plasticity processes thought to be critical for healthy network function.
After graduating from Oxford University in 2006 I was awarded an MRC Capacity building Ph.D. studentship at King’s College London to investigate synaptic connection loss and neural plasticity in the cortex. I then completed a post-doc investigating how homeostatic plasticity regulates neural activity in the adult visual cortex at University College London. In October 2015, I won the Edmond J Safra Fellowship which supports early career researchers during their transition to independence. In April 2018 I was awarded a UK Dementia Research Institute Fellowship and became a lecturer in the Division of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London. Here, I use a combination of in vivo voltage and calcium imaging, bioelectronics and electrophysiology to investigate the neural-circuit plasticity factors that make the aged brain susceptible to neurodegeneration and ultimately dementia.
Publications
Journals
Melgosa-Ecenarro L, Doostdar N, Radulescu CI, et al., 2022, Pinpointing the locus of GABAergic vulnerability in Alzheimer?s disease, Seminars in Cell & Developmental Biology, Vol:139, ISSN:1084-9521, Pages:35-54
Barnes SJ, Keller GB, Keck T, 2022, Homeostatic regulation through strengthening of neuronal network-correlated synaptic inputs, Elife, Vol:11, ISSN:2050-084X
Dehghan A, Pinto RC, Karaman I, et al., 2022, Metabolome-wide association study on ABCA7 indicates a role of ceramide metabolism in Alzheimer's disease., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of Usa, Vol:119, ISSN:0027-8424, Pages:1-12
Morten MJ, Sirvio L, Rupawala H, et al., 2022, Quantitative super-resolution imaging of pathological aggregates reveals distinct toxicity profiles in different synucleinopathies., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of Usa, Vol:119, ISSN:0027-8424, Pages:1-12
Radulescu CI, Barnes SJ, 2021, Learning and memory: Scaling new areas, Current Biology, Vol:31, ISSN:0960-9822, Pages:R721-R723