Supraja’s presentation provides insights into mechanisms that promote retinal ganglion cell (RGC) axon regeneration in vertebrates.
Her work describes a distal optic tract injury model that can be used to investigate re-connectivity of RGC axons to central targets in the brain. She also describes how increased neural activity in retinorecipient neurons in the pretectum promotes RGC axon regeneration, and rescues deficits in optomotor function caused by injury. Techniques used include intravitreal injections, chemogenetics, anatomical tracing, optomotor testing, and histology.
Key Topics Include:
- Key signals involved in visual circuit formation during development
- New injury model for investigating reconnecting visual circuits
- Current and future potential therapeutic treatments for restoring vision
- Categories: Neuroscience, Vision Research
- Tags: chemogenetics, eye disease, neural activity, Optomotor tracking, retinal degeneration, retinal injury
Resources
Presenters
Supraja Varadarajan, PhD
Incoming Assistant Professor
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Supraja Varadarajan obtained her PhD from the University of California Los Angeles and completed her postdoctoral work at Stanford University in the lab of Andrew Huberman. She is primarily interested in the mechanisms that regulate axon growth in both health and disease.
Webinar Host
Striatech
Striatech is a young biotech company that spun off from the University of Tübingen, Germany, at the beginning of 2018. The founders – a team of neurobiologists – are all experienced vision researchers and have made it their common goal to make innovative ideas and products from vision and behavioral research accessible to scientists worldwide.
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