Students
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Name: Andrew Hamilton
Major Professor: Karen Zito Department: Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior (College of Biological Sciences) Lab Phone: (530) 754-4774 Email: anhamilton@ucdavis.edu Web Site: http://biosci2.ucdavis.edu/FacultyProfiles/Centers/CenterForNeuroscience/DisplayFacultyProfile.cfm?ResearcherID=2182 |
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Degrees
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| Research Interests | |
| The majority of chemical synapses within the mammalian central nervous system are housed within a two-part system; the presynaptic axonal bouton and the postsynaptic dendritic spines. Spines are largely defined as finger-like extensions of the plasma membrane of the neuron, and act to both house and isolate the postsynaptic density (PSD), a complex of hundreds of proteins involved in the reception and propagation of synaptic transmission. Spines themselves are highly motile structures which change shape and length in response to stimuli, and appear and disappear on timescales ranging from minutes to weeks. It has been established that proteins of the PSD are exchanged between neighboring spines in an activity and spine volume dependent manner. This leads us to believe that the retention of vital proteins of the PSD may be causative of (or correlated with) spine stabilization. As such, I investigate the molecular mechanisms and time-courses of protein retention within spines, hoping to find key proteins which are vital to the stabilization of new spines. | |
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Publications
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