SEMINARIO: Alicia Hidalgo

Speaker: Alicia Hidalgo

Title: Toll routes to brain plasticity, degeneration and regeneration.

Abstract: In Hidalgo´s lab we aim to understand how physical changes in cells – cell proliferation and cell loss, neurite growth and degeneration, synapse formation and elimination – modify brain function. The brain is normally in balance between structural plasticity and homeostasis. Plasticity enables us to adapt to the challenges of life, and homeostasis constrains behaviour within normal boundaries. This balance breaks down in ageing, disease and injury. In fact, homeostatic mechanisms could drive neurodegeneration. By contrast, although the human central nervous system does not regenerate after injury, cells respond to challenges with limited regenerative responses that if understood, could be exploited to direct regeneration. In the undamaged brain, lived experience could influence cellular features, modifying neural circuits, and thereafter behaviour. The molecular mechanisms that could regulate these events are poorly understood. We use the powerful genetics of the fruit-fly, Drosophila, to uncover molecular mechanisms underlying regeneration and how experience shapes the brain. We will present a recent discovery of a molecular switch linked to Toll signalling that can drive structural plasticity, degeneration or regeneration, depending on context.