Speaker Bio
I was born in Russia, in the snowy city called Khabarovsk. After I completed my bachelor studies in biophysics in Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, I went to the master program in Computational Biology in ETH, Switzerland. While there, I became interested in neuroscience, and afterwards I started my PhD in experimental neuroscience in the Keller lab in Basel, which studies predictive processing and antipsychotics. Currently I am on the 4th year of my PhD. Scientifically, I am interested in understanding how psychedelics work, how motor learning is happening and how the brain predicts the future. Nonscientifically I am into squash and lindy hop, so if you are also interested in those, hit me up!
ICPR 2024 Abstract
Different effects of psychedelics on layer 2/3 and layer 5 neurons in mice
Theoretical background and rationale:
Psychedelics are known to profoundly alter the perception of the world. Yet, the underlying neural mechanisms behind these changes remain poorly understood. Recent research has mostly focused on broad changes in brain activity, but a detailed exploration of how different neuronal cell types respond to these substances is still missing.
Research Question and Hypothesis:
We investigated how different excitatory neuronal cell types alter their responses to bottom-up and top-down inputs. Based on subjective reports of increased associativity of thoughts and synesthesia, we hypothesized that certain cell types would show heightened responses to top-down inputs from other cortical regions.
Methods and Analysis:
Using two-photon and widefield recordings in head-fixed mice on psychedelics in virtual reality, we characterized the changes in responses of layer 2/3, layer 5 IT, and layer 5 PT excitatory neurons to visual stimuli and locomotion onsets, which served as the proxies for the bottom-up and top-down input.
Main Findings:
Our findings indicate that layer 2/3 and layer 5 neurons show different patterns of changes to the bottom-up and top-down inputs. In particular, under the influence of psychedelics, the top-down input strength was increased in both layer 5 IT and PT neurons, which is consistent with the initial hypothesis.
Conclusion:
This study provides the first characterization of psychedelic effects on different subtypes of layer 5 neurons and offers a starting point for understanding the computational roles of various cell types and their contributions to subjective psychedelic experiences.