Conférence scientifique | Centre de recherche du CHU Sainte-Justine
Conférence présentée par Roberto Araya, PhD, professeur sous octroi agrégé, Département de neurosciences, Faculté de médecine, Université de Montréal.
Invité pour l'axe Cerveau et développement de l'enfant
Biographie :
I was born in Santiago, Chile on April 27th, 1974.
In 1997 I received a B.Sc. degree in Biology from Univ. Catolica de Chile. As a graduate student with Dr. Juan Saez, from Univ. Catolica de Chile, and Dr. Klaus Willecke from the University of Bonn, I studied the role of purinergic signaling and gap junctions in the development and regeneration of skeletal muscles. I received my Ph.D. degree in Physiology in 2004 from Univ. Catolica de Chile. Upon completion of my graduate studies, I switched to studying the Neocortex.
From May 2004 to August 2011 I spent my postdoctoral years at the laboratory of Dr. Rafael Yuste at Columbia University as a PEW Postdoctoral Latin American Fellow. My postdoctoral research was focused on elucidating the integrative properties of excitatory synaptic inputs in cortical pyramidal neurons. Since September 2011 I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Montreal.
The work in my laboratory is aimed at elucidating the a) input/output properties of neurons and b) the structure and function of dendritic spines and their role in information processing and plasticity of cortical circuits in health and disease. We are taking a multifaceted approach to answering these questions, using optical, electrophysiological, structural and molecular tools.
