Pepe Alcami
Main Focus
My research aims at understanding how cells communicate with each other in the brain, how this communication underlies computation and coding in neural networks and how it ultimately determines behavior.
I am currently investigating these questions in the song-related brain
circuits in songbirds at the Max Planck for Ornithology (Seewiesen) in
the laboratory of Prof. Manfred Gahr and at the LMU in Munich
(Martinsried) in the laboratory of Prof. Benedikt Grothe.
If you would like to learn more about ongoing projects and join, please don’t hesitate to contact me! Internships for motivated bachelor and master students are available!! Currently Maximilian Franck is doing
his master thesis on synaptic plasticity in canaries.
1. Electrical transmission in the vertebrate nervous system
Electrical and chemical synapses co-exist in most brain regions. Electrical synapses have a powerful and unique impact on network computation that is largely overlooked. I have previously studied their contribution to passive properties of interneurons in the cerebellum and the connectivity of interneuron networks connected by electrical synapses (Alcami and Marty, 2013). I also showed that electrical synapses decrease the excitability of neurons but comparatively enhance firing in response to coincident and sequential excitatory inputs (Alcami, 2018).I am now studying the impact of electrical synapses on the computational abilities of coupled networks in songbirds and rodents. Ongoing projects aim at investigating:
• the interactions between electrical synapses and chemical synapses
• the interactions between electrical synapses and intrinsic properties of neurons
• the plasticity of electrical transmission and its impact on network computation and on behavior.