UE Synaptic Plasticity of the adult nervous system

The 3h lectures are given by specialists of the field working in Grenoble or in foreign univeristies. They will deal with the following subjects:

• Principle of electrophysiology
• Principle of calcium and voltage membrane potential imaging
• The use of transgenic mice and bi-photon microscopy to monitor the role of glial cells in the brain.
• Ischemia: Glutamate receptors and ischemia
• Of Microtubules and Mitochondria
• Stem cells in the CNS          
• Alzheimer’s disease: from the gene down to the synapse
• Huntington and axonal transport
• Htt links Neurodegeneration to CNS development

10h will be dedicated to presentations of scientific articles by students.

Each year, a full day congress will be organized on a particular field, coordinated with other M2 NN modules.

After this module, the students should be able to:

1. Recapitulate the basic cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying learning and memory as well as those compromised in neurodegenerative diseases.
2. Apprehend the state-of-the art methods allowing studies of synaptic plasticity both in vitro and in vivo.
3. Explain experimental strategies used in a scientific study, analyze and discuss the results.