Grant: Operating Grant

My research focuses on brain or nerve cells. I am interested in the control of bio-electric properties, which are governed by minute holes in nerve cells called channel proteins. These proteins pass ions (such as calcium, sodium or potassium) in and out of the cell. Because ions carry a charge, their movement constitutes the flow of very small electrical current. Nerve cells harness these electrical currents to receive and process information, as well as signal other nerve cells, muscles, or glands. Taking a reductionist approach, I study the brain of a sea snail, called Aplysia, which has large and identifiable nerve cells that control defined behaviours. My objective is to examine the channel proteins from those nerve cells that initiate reproduction in Aplysia. Essentially, these are motivational cells for a fundamentally important behaviour. I am particularly interested in understanding how, after only a very short stimulus, these nerve cells respond in a very prolonged manner. Changes in activity of this nature are essential for handling sensory information, learning, generating movement, and controlling behaviours like drinking, eating, ovulation, birth, and breast feeding. Studying the proteins responsible for the electrical properties of Aplysia's motivational nerve cells will provide a better understanding of how, in general, nerve cells trigger behaviour. The electrical changes that occur in Aplysia's cells are very similar to that observed in most animals, and these findings will apply to processes such as perception, memory, or certain basic and instinctual behaviours. Furthermore, because the channel proteins of interest allow a nerve cell to be active on its own, there may be implications for epilepsy. Electric properties are inappropriately adjusted in epilepsy. Given that some of the channel proteins implicated in this disease are related to Aplysia proteins, I will be able to examine their function in a well-defined system.