Cellular mechanisms of memory and epilepsy

In the Ewell Lab, we strive to uncover the network mechanisms of learning and memory in health and disease. We focus on temporal lobe epilepsy – a disease characterized by spontaneous seizures and profound memory impairments. We employ large scale in vivo recording techniques to record from hippocampal networks duringmemory tasks. We have established that epileptic mice have deficits in spatial working memory, and that they have multiple alterations in the neural codes that support this type of memory.  We are currently developing novel automated high throughput behavioral tasks to probe the impact that such impaired dynamics have on encoding, consolidation, and recall of spatial memories.