Mock Christenson Wick Lab People

My neuroscience research interests are fueled by the same intrinsic qualities that drive so many of us to bird watching. I am in awe of how complex, heterogeneous, and diverse cells in the brain are, and am inspired by the challenge of understanding their unique roles. This heterogeneity is absolutely critical to the resilience and adaptability of any ecosystem, including the brain. The diverse cells making up the brain allow it to, under healthy conditions, change and adapt to meet the functional demands placed upon it. However, throughout the lifetime (and in many disease conditions) the neuronal organization of the brain is altered, resulting in diminished resilience and the development of maladaptive neural processes. The research questions I am most drawn to are those that appreciate and leverage the subtle cellular and circuit-level changes that underly pathologies, in particular those that underly learning and memory deficits. I am committed to developing techniques and technology that will allow us to better understand the real-time consequences of these subtle changes in activity.

I am currently an Instructor in Dr. Tristan Shuman’s lab at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, on the job market for tenure-track Assistant Professor positions in neuroscience.  My independent research program will investigate how i) inhibition and neural synchrony shape information processing, and ii) how inhibition and neural synchrony is altered in cognitive disorders and in healthy aging.  This research program leverages my expertise with in vivo and in vitro electrophysiology, circuit dissection, controlling neural activity relative to endogenous brain rhythms, signal processing, and mouse models of epilepsy and aging. I am looking for a highly collaborative and rigorous research environment in which to study the fundamental drivers of canonical activity patterns in the hippocampus and how disruptions in these patterns of activity drive translationally relevant changes in behavior. Notably, the aging work in my independent lab will be supported by a Simons Collaboration on Plasticity and the Aging Brain Fellows-to-Faculty award.

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Research interests:

Watching wild turkeys from the window, chasing bugs, trying new foods (any but especially chicken)

Other interests:

Sleeping, cuddles.