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0:00
Hello everybody.
My name is Javier Diaz Alonso,
and I am an assistant professor
at the Department of
Anatomy and Neurobiology
in the School of Medicine
of the University of
California, Irvine.
Work in my lab focuses
on the molecular mechanisms
underlying synapse organization,
transmission, and plasticity.
We're particularly interested
in two fascinating
signaling systems
which enable communication
between neurons,
and are critical for cognitive
and emotional processes.
The glutamatergic and
endocannabinoid signaling systems.
In this talk, I will
provide a general overview
of neurotransmitter receptor
auxiliary subunits.
This is a broad exciting topic
which has evolved quickly
during the past two decades,
and has attracted neuroscientists
from many disciplines.
Biochemistry, biophysics,
electroneutrality, imaging,
and also more recently,
medicinal chemists
and drug development.
Working as a post doc with
Dr. Roger Nicoll at UCSF
and now in my independent
laboratory at UC Irvine,
we have made some
contributions to this topic,
which we will discuss
in this talk,
along with crucial contributions
from other laboratories.
1:10
Before we start diving
into the main topic,
I would like to draw
your attention to some
of the fantastic talks in this
Henry Stewart collection,
which are highly relevant
to the materials
covered in this talk,
which I strongly
recommend you to explore.
These include but
are not limited to,
Dr. Stuart Cull-Candy
on AMPA receptors
and fast synaptic
transmission in the brain.
Dr. Johannes Hell on PSD-95,
dynamic localization of PSD-95
and glutamate receptors
at postsynaptic sites,
and also a second talk
on PSD-95,
structural aspects of
PDZ domain binding.
Dr. Graham Collingridge
on glutamate receptor modulation
and long term
synaptic plasticity.
And Dr. Jonathan Hanley
on postsynaptic scaffold
proteins in health and disease.
There's many other
very good talks,
but these are very relevant
to the topics that
we're covering today.
