Nishiyama Lab Spotlight
The long-term goal of the research in the Nishiyama lab is to understand how axonal innervations to postsynaptic targets are: (1) refined during brain development, and (2) reorganized in adulthood with learning and memory, and (3) with brain injury. To achieve these aims, the Nishiyama lab uses the cerebellum as a main model system because the cerebellum has simple and well-defined synaptic circuitry that undergoes significant developmental refinement during postnatal life. They are using many new and refined techniques including long-term in vivo two-photon time-lapse microscopy, multi-color neuronal labeling, and selective photo-ablation of visually identified neurons. The Nishiyama lab is the first to: (1) visualize developmental synapse competition and elimination in the intact mammalian brain, and (2) combine long-term in vivo imaging of cerebellar neurons with longitudinal behavioral training.