Imaging information-driven neural circuit growth within the developing brain

The Haas Lab in the Centre for Brain Health at UBC designs and constructs ultrafast 3D-imaging two-photon microscopes, in vivo single-cell transfection strategies, and 4D post-imaging analytics to investigate the roles of sensory experience in the formation of functional neural circuits during early brain development. By labeling individual growing brain neurons using genetically-encoded protein fluorophores and fluorescent biosensors of neural activity we image and measure the impact of visual stimuli on dendritic arbor growth, synapse formation and plasticity, precise synaptic patterning, and action potential encoding. We find that growth and synaptic plasticity is dependent on the relationship of the visual information experienced to each neuron’s encoding properties.