Julijana Gjorgjieva receives 2017 NARSAD Young Investigator Award to study spontaneous activity in the developing mouse brain
With the grant from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, Max Planck Research Group Leader Julijana Gjorgjieva will characterize specific aspects of normal brain development. The work will focus on spontaneous activity, a phenomenon observed in the brain prior to sensory experience, which plays a powerful role in shaping brain-wide circuits.
Julijana will collaborate with Christian Lohmann from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience in Amsterdam who will provide in vivo data of spontaneous activity from the developing mouse cortex. Using theoretical and numerical approaches the neuroscientists will study the interplay of transient intrinsic neuronal and circuit features on the generation of spontaneous activity and its implications for normal circuit development.
This work could potentially have important implications for the understanding, treatment and prevention of developmental neuropsychiatric disorders. The MPI for Brain Research congratulations Julijana on this great effort.