Fox, Kevin - Cardiff University - School of Biosciences

研究领域

The cerebral cortex is most highly developed in humans. It is that part of the brain which gives us our distinctively human qualities. How does the cortex process information and how does it store new information, in other words, how does it remember? We are studying these questions in an area of the brain that processes tactile information. We record neuronal activity and measure the way sensory processing is modified by experience (experience-dependent plasticity). We can test whether particular proteins are necessary for plasticity and recent results show that a major post-synaptic protein known as CAMKII is crucial for plasticity in this area of the cortex. Studies on synaptic plasticity implicate the GluR1 subunit of the AMPA channel and neuronal Nitric oxide synthase, the enzyme that makes nitric oxide are responsible for post- and pres-synaptic components of potentiation respectively. We are studying all these questions in an area of the somatosensory cortex known as the Barrel cortex. This area of the brain has been intensively studied over recent years in an effort to understand sensory processing, cortical development and cortical plasticity. More information on barrel cortex can be found in this newly published book.

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Glazewski, S., Greenhill, S. and Fox, K. 2017. Time-course and mechanisms of homeostatic plasticity in layers 2/3 and 5 of the barrel cortex. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B - Biological Sciences 372(1715) (10.1098/rstb.2016.0150) pdf Keck, T.et al. 2017. Integrating Hebbian and homeostatic plasticity: the current state of the field and future research directions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B - Biological Sciences 372(1715), article number: 20160158. (10.1098/rstb.2016.0158) pdf Fox, K. and Stryker, M. 2017. Integrating Hebbian and homeostatic plasticity: introduction. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B - Biological Sciences 372(1715), article number: 28093560. (10.1098/rstb.2016.0413) Jacob, V.et al. 2017. Whisker row deprivation affects the flow of sensory information through rat barrel cortex. Journal of Neurophysiology 117(1), pp. 4-17. (10.1152/jn.00289.2016) pdf Dachtler, J. and Fox, K. D. 2017. Do cortical plasticity mechanisms differ between males and females?. Journal of Neuroscience Research 95(1-2), pp. 518-526. (10.1002/jnr.23850) pdf Zhou, M.et al. 2016. CCR5 is a suppressor for cortical plasticity and hippocampal learning and memory. eLife 5, pp. e20985. (10.7554/eLife.20985) pdf Greenhill, S. D., Ranson, A. and Fox, K. D. 2015. Hebbian and homeostatic plasticity mechanisms in regular spiking and intrinsic bursting cells of cortical layer 5. Neuron 88(3), pp. 539-552. (10.1016/j.neuron.2015.09.025) pdf Greenhill, S.et al. 2015. Adult cortical plasticity depends on an early postnatal critical period. Science 349(6246), pp. 424-427. (10.1126/science.aaa8481) pdf