In memory overgeneralization, details from negatively-valenced episodic memories become excessively generalized to unrelated neutral situations. This is a key cognitive distortion associated with major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Stress promotes memory generalization, and this process likely relies on stress-induced changes in dorsal...
Protein homeostasis, or proteostasis, is essential for preserving all cellular functions and involves a balance of protein synthesis, folding, trafficking, and degradation. A collapse in proteostasis is a common feature of many neurodegenerative disorders that are characterized by the accumulation of insoluble protein aggregates in the brain. Parkinson’s disease (PD)...
The dentate gyrus is the first region for information processing within the classic hippocampal trisynaptic circuit, and this position makes it an important structure for the formation of associative memories. The dentate gyrus contains two major types of excitatory neurons: granule cells and mossy cells. While previous work has shown...
Social engagement, or shared attention between a child and caregiver, is a critical process for language and social development. Although previous EEG studies have investigated child social processing in closely controlled, experimental studies, no study has examined the interactive, reciprocal process of naturalistic social engagement. In my first paper, we...
Stimulus generalization is a critical mechanism for facilitating behavioral flexibility. Generalization allows the brain to reduce computational demands that would otherwise be necessary to create unique representations for each and every encounter while allowing the ability to deal with the complexity of real-world situations. Stimulus generalization is a fundamental cognitive...
Movement is achieved by combining synaptic inputs from various sources and activating motor unit populations. Motor units are the quantal elements of motor control which act as a neuromechanical transducer that converts sensory inputs into motor output. Because of the tight neuromuscular junctions between motoneuron axon terminals and a large...
Coordinated movement relies on the precise and controlled activation of populations of motor units, which convert the commands of the nervous system into muscle forces. Motor unit firing patterns are often nonlinear and generated through the response to a combination of ionotropic excitatory and inhibitory commands, as well as metabotropic...
Inter-organelle contact sites have become increasingly appreciated as important regulators of cellular homeostasis, and disruption of inter-organelle contact site dynamics and function has been observed in various pathologies. Recently, inter-organelle contact sites between mitochondria and lysosomes were discovered, offering a new mechanism by which these two organelles may directly interact,...
Chemokines, such as Stromal Derived Factor 1 (SDF-1 or CXCL12) and their G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) are well known regulators of the development and functions of numerous tissues. CXCL12 has two receptors: CXCR4 and CXCR7 or atypical chemokine receptor 3 (ACKR3). CXCR7 has been described as an atypical “biased”...
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating neurodegenerative disease characterized by motor neuron (MN) degeneration and resulting in progressive paralysis and death. ALS is genetically heterogeneous, disease pathophysiology is not completely understood, and there are no effective drug therapies. To develop broadly applicable therapeutics, we examine disease mechanisms in the...
