Synaptic wiring lab
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"If we could look through the skull into the brain of a consciously thinking person, and if the place of optimal excitability were luminous, then we should see playing over the cerebral surface, a bright spot with fantastic, waving borders constantly fluctuating in size and form, surrounded by a darkness more or less deep, covering the rest of the hemisphere."(Pavlov, 1913)

Simon Wiegert lab
The vision posited by Ivan Pavlov about 100 years ago has more or less become reality today. Yet, it is still not clear how such activity patterns in the brain are encoded at the synaptic level. Synapses are the major sites of information exchange between neurons and can be regarded as the principal information-encoding units. Information may be encoded and stored both in the weights and in the wiring pattern of synapses. However, whether individual synapses contribute to lasting alterations of neuronal circuits evoked by learning and memory formation is still not clear. We are interested in resolving how synapses participate in the formation and storage of memory engrams in the brain. To this end we develop and use optical methods to investigate Shaffer collateral synapses of the hippocampus in vitro and in vivo.


two photon imaging


​Projects

  • synaptic wiring of hippocampal circuits
  • in vivo imaging of hippocampal synapses
  • development of inhibitory light-gated anion channels
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electroporation virus injection


​Methods

  • in vitro and in vivo 2-photon imaging, fiber photometry & optogenetics
  • optogenetic stimulation and read-out of synaptic function
  • development of novel optogenetic tools
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Simon Wiegert array


Featured publication

Rodriguez-Rozada, S., Wietek, J., Tenedini, F. M., Sauter, K., Hege-mann, P., Soba, P., & Wiegert, J.S. (2022).
Aion is a bistable anion-conducting channelrhodopsin that provides temporally extended and reversible neuronal silencing.
Commun Biol
, 5, 687 (2022).
(PubMed, PDF)

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  • HOME
  • Research Interests
  • Methods
  • The Team in Hamburg
  • The Team in Mannheim
  • Publications
  • Curriculum Vitae
  • Contact