Full time
Harvard University
Boston, MA
The Greenberg lab at Harvard Medical School examines how neuronal activity shapes the maturation and plasticity of the nervous system. Sensory experience shapes the development of neural circuits during early-life windows of heightened plasticity, known as critical periods. While the key factors that drive critical period opening have been extensively characterized, the specific cues that restrain developmental plasticity as animals mature are less clear. For this project, we will characterize a new molecular pathway discovered in our laboratory by which circulating glucocorticoids act on glial cells in the brain to close critical periods of plasticity. We will further examine how early-life stress, which elevates glucocorticoid levels and increases susceptibility to many neuropsychiatric diseases, alters the timing of developmental plasticity to disrupt cognition, memory, and behavior. Collectively, this project will help us better understand the fundamental mechanisms gating...