Our brains constantly have to adapt to changes in the environment. Therefore neuronal circuits cannot be hardwired, but require the capacity to change, and to integrate and store new information about the world around us. This is especially important during development when circuits are first set up, but also later in life to enable learning and memory formation. Learning alters our perceptions, cognition and behaviour by modifying neuronal circuits within and between different brain regions. Understanding how this happens is crucial for understanding normal brain function, and for devising therapeutic approaches for correcting disorders of infromation storage and retrieval such as dementia. Yet the mechanisms of learning in the intact brain are not well understood. How new information is stored in neuronal circuits and how new experiences, which are behaviourally relevant for the animal, alter single cells, their connections and the flow of information through neuronal networks, remain fundamental questions in neuroscience.

In my lab we are studying the mechanisms by which neocortical circuits give rise to sensations, how these circuits are set up during development and how they are changed and shaped by new experiences and learning. Using the mouse visual cortex as a model system we are emplying state of the art in vivo imaging of function and structure, electrophysiological and genetic techniques to visualize neurons, their activity and their synapses in the intact brain and follow changes over time while animals are learning or making new experiences.