Research

Transport of molecules from the synapse to the nucleus of neurons is particularly challenging because synapses are often very far from the cell body. Our lab has described a role for importin-mediate active transport of signals from synapse to nucleus during long-term plasticity. Current research is aimed at 1) identifying synaptically localized cargoes that undergo stimulus-induced nuclear import during neuronal plasticity, 2) understanding how synaptic stimulation triggers their nuclear import, and 3) characterizing the cell biological pathways mediating the long-distance retrograde transport from synapse to nucleus. We are also focused on identifying the specific changes in transcription that are required for long-term plasticity, and on understanding the function of transcriptional changes in gene expression in synaptic plasticity.