New collaborative preprint with Whistler Lab

Dopamine receptors are really interesting. They're targets for most commonly administered second generation antipsychotics (SGAs), and the canon has been that block of dopamine receptor-dependent signaling is the primary way in which SGAs help with neuropsychiatric symptoms. But here, by examining...

Sunrae Taloma joins the lab!

It's a pleasure to welcome our newest grad student, Sunrae Taloma, to the lab, where she's already digging into her project on sodium channel function and dysfunction using rat model systems. Sunrae holds the distinct honor of being so good at the rig that Kevin relented on his rule of "no quartz...

Preprint of collaborative project with Jenkins Lab posted.

Sodium channels are scaffolded to neuronal membranes by ankyrins. While there has been quite a lot of research on interactions between sodium channels and ankyrins in axons, far less attention has been paid to how sodium channels are anchored to dendritic compartments.

Preprint on CRISPRa approach to rescue SCN2A haploinsufficiency posted

Autism-associated variants in the gene SCN2A commonly impair gene function. This leads to haploinsufficiency, where a single functional copy cannot compensate for the loss of its partner. Here, Serena Tamura, a recently-graduated student in the Ahituv lab at UCSF, worked with us to test whether...

Andrew is awarded a fellowship from NIMH!

Congratulations to Dr. Andrew Nelson, who just received word that his F32 has been awarded!  Andrew is studying potential points of convergence across genes implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders.

Anna's paper published in J Neurosci!

A detailed understanding of AP-evoked calcium entry in the axon initial segment of prefrontal pyramidal cells. Several interesting takeaways: 1) There are far more channel types in these cells than others we've examined in the past. Cartwheel cells have only 2 types of CaVs in their initial...

New Preprint from Perry Spratt on SCN2A

Perry has examined what happens to pyramidal cells when SCN2A expression is completely knocked out. Oddly, despite losing the entirety of NaV1.2 conductance, the cells are more excitable than normal. Read here as we made an effort to figure out why: Paradoxical hyperexcitability from NaV1.2 sodium...

New Preprint from Anna Lipkin on AIS calcium

Anna explored the intricacies of action potential-evoked calcium signals in prefrontal pyramidal cells and found that there is a rather complicated and interesting arrangement of different channel types that give rise to different calcium signals through this ever-so-important neuronal structure....

Chenyu Wang is awarded a Discovery Fellowship from UCSF!

Anna Lipkin wins datablitz award at program retreat!