Speaker
Description
Adaptive mechanisms are essential for maintaining a balanced operating regime of neuronal networks. Disturbances in these mechanisms—for example, mutations in ion channels, synaptic receptors, or scaffold proteins—can lead to epilepsy, neurodevelopmental or neurodegenerative disorders. Recent advances in single-cell transcriptomics, together with patient-derived organoid technology, provide unprecedented insights into the molecular basis of such pathologies. However, linking molecular changes to functional defects at the cell and network levels remains a formidable challenge.
Functional characterization of neuronal networks requires not only spatially and temporally resolved readouts, but also spatially and temporally controlled stimulation over long timescales. To address this, we combine incubator-compatible platforms for extracellular electrophysiology with optical stimulation of light-sensitized neurons.
Our microprocessor-controlled “light-disco” stimulators can operate continuously for months, providing patterned stimulation. This low-budget, scalable solution enables us to record from hundreds of cells for days while controlling spatiotemporal input with millisecond precision.
We combine our experimental setup with an integrated data management and analysis infrastructure that automates handling of large-scale recordings. From these data, we can extract neuronal receptive fields, infer functional connectivity and characterize the dynamic structure of population activity under stimulation.
Together, this flexible framework provides a powerful approach to study how adaptive mechanisms shape the dynamics of living neural networks across biologically relevant timescales.
