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Biography
BBSRC-funded PhD student in Behavioural Neuroscience, interested in the neural bases of cognition and behaviour
Recent publications:
Landreth KR, Juty J, Mansour N, Radu P, Fletcher J, Benalla I, Grayson B, Petersen RS, Harte MK, Gigg J. Deficits in medial prefrontal cortex parvalbumin expression and distraction-dependent memory in rats and mice in the sub-chronic phencyclidine model for schizophrenia. Front Cell Neurosci. 2025 Oct 29;19:1669050. doi: 10.3389/fncel.2025.1669050. PMID: 41234277; PMCID: PMC12605401.
Jacco G. Renström, Charlotte J.L. Taylor, Rachel Grasmeder Allen, Luke O'Hara, Joanna Loayza, Jacob Juty, Paula M. Moran, Moritz von Heimendahl, Serena Deiana, Johann Du Hoffman, Carl W. Stevenson, Silvia Maggi, Tobias Bast Too little and too much: medial prefrontal functional inhibition impairs early, whereas neural disinhibition impairs serial reversal performance in ratsbioRxiv 2025.02.10.637529; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.02.10.637529
Expertise Summary
Expertise in stereotaxic brain surgery, intracerebral microinfusions, perfusion-fixation, rodent behavioural testing and immunohistochemistry
Teaching Summary
Involved in teaching practical skills and data analysis to undergraduate Psychology students, as well as supervising internship projects in our lab group
Research Summary
My research investigates the role of perineuronal nets (PNNs) in cognition and behaviour. PNNs surround cortical GABAergic parvalbumin-expressing interneurons, restricting plasticity and regulating… read more
Current Research
My research investigates the role of perineuronal nets (PNNs) in cognition and behaviour. PNNs surround cortical GABAergic parvalbumin-expressing interneurons, restricting plasticity and regulating GABAergic inhibition. PNN disruption has been implicated in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia, potentially due to neural disinhibition caused by PNN loss. We investigate the behavioural, molecular and electrophysiological consequences of PNN loss with site-specific disruption of hippocampal and prefrontal PNNs in Lister Hooded rats with the enzyme chondroitinase-ABC and subsequent behavioural testing, as well as histological analyses and in-vivo electrophysiological recordings.
Supervisors: Dr Tobias Bast at the University of Nottingham, Professor Michael Harte and Dr John Gigg at b-neuro, our industry collaborator.
Past Research
I have previously worked on research projects assessing object and social memory deficits in both the 3xTg mouse model of Alzheimer's disease and the sub-chronic phencyclidine (scPCP) mouse model of schizophrenia during my time as both an MSci student and a research intern under the supervision of Dr John Gigg at the University of Manchester. I also used immunohistochemistry to demonstrate a reduction of parvalbumin-positive neurons in the scPCP mouse, exclusive to the dentate gyrus.