Neuroscience Seminar Series

Title: Prefrontal Circuits and Function in Fear Discrimination Learning

Speaker:
Ed Korzus, PhD
University of California, Riverside

On Decmeber 2 at 4:00PM
Streamed via MS Teams. 
Conference ID - 718 535 725#

Dr. Korzus research team studies mechanisms of learning and memory, specifically how medial prefrontal cortex-hippocampal circuit dynamics support fear modulation, including how maladaptation in prefrontal networks leads to neuropsychiatric vulnerability. His studies combine multiple techniques that include large-scale imaging of neuronal dynamics, mouse molecular genetics, electrophysiology, optogenetics, behavior and computational analysis of network activity.  Dr. Korzus laboratory employs in vivo calcium imaging of the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus using miniaturized microscopes. These head-mounted microscopes offer to dramatically improve investigations of neural assemblies and provide unparalleled insights into understanding neural circuit dynamics by enabling stable recordings in large numbers of single cells in a freely moving mouse during weeks of behavior.

Dr. Korzus earned a PhD in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from the University of Georgia, Athens, GA (1996).  In March 1996, he became a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Postdoctoral Fellow in neurogenetics at University of California San Diego (1996-7). In 1997, he received postdoctoral training in the field of Learning & Memory in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY. Afterward, he became a U.S. Department of Defense Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, La Jolla, CA (1997-2000). In 2000, he received NIH K01 Research Career Award and was appointed as an Assistant Research Neuroscientist in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine (2000-5) and continued his research as Senior Research Associate at the Dorris Neuroscience Center on La Jolla Campus of The Scripps Research Institute (2004-6). In July 2006, Dr. Korzus joined the faculty in the Department of Psychology at the University of California Riverside.