Making Sense of Touch
Event Details
- Type
- Friday Lecture Series
- Speaker(s)
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David Ginty, Ph.D., Edward R. and Anne G. Lefler Professor of Neurobiology and head of the department of neurobiology, Harvard Medical School; investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Speaker bio(s)
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Our relationship with the physical world is rich, complex, and essential for life. How are tactile stimuli acting on the body encoded by neurons of the peripheral nervous system and represented in the brain? This lecture will explore the properties and functions of mammalian cutaneous light touch sensory neurons with an emphasis on the neurophysiology of mechanical vibration sensing. Dr. Ginty will also describe the organizational logic of sensory neuron synapses in the spinal cord and the subcortical circuitry underlying early stages of tactile feature representation. The lecture will end with a discussion of the ultrastructural features and other properties of sensory neuron end organs that underlie mechanotransduction.
David Ginty is department chair and the Lefler Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School and an HHMI investigator.
Ginty is a sensory and developmental neurobiologist. His laboratory investigates the properties and functions of the primary sensory neurons of somatosensation and the functional organization of touch and pain circuits in the spinal cord and brain, in health and disease.
Ginty earned his Ph.D. degree in physiology from East Carolina University, did postdoctoral research on neuronal signaling mechanisms at Harvard Medical School, and was a professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, before returning to Harvard Medical School in 2013.
- Open to
- Tri-Institutional