Munich Center for NeuroSciences - Brain and Mind
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Pepe Alcami

Dr. Pepe Alcami

GSN junior or temporary faculty

Responsibilities

Research Group Leader

Contact

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Faculty of Biology, Division of Neurobiology

Phone: +49 (0)89 / 2180-74316

Website: https://neuro.bio.lmu.de/members/systems_neuro_grothe/alcami_p/index.html

Further Information

Keywords: songbird plasticity coding biophysics behavior

Research description: My research aims at understanding how cells communicate with each other in the brain, how this communication underlies computations and coding in neural networks and how it ultimately determines behavior. In the lab, we are currently investigating these questions with a focus on the song-related brain circuits in songbirds (canaries and zebra finches), great models to link brains and their plasticity to behavior. Ongoing projects in the lab focus on three main directions:

  1. behavioral plasticity in social environments and its neural correlates,
  2. seasonal plasticity of synapses, neurons and glial cells, their physiological and biophysical impact and their link to behavioral plasticity, and
  3. the role of electrical synapses in neural dynamics and behavior in the songbird brain.
GSN students: Santhosh Totagera
Supervision of GSN MSc/Fast track students: Alexandros Lambiris

Selected publications:

1. BEHAVIORAL PLASTICITY IN SOCIAL ENVIRONMENTS - Pepe Alcami, Shouwen Ma, Manfred Gahr (2021) Telemetry reveals rapid duel-driven song plasticity in a naturalistic social environment. bioRxiv, 803411.

2. ELECTRICAL SYNAPSES IN THE SONGBIRD BRAIN - Pepe Alcami, Santhosh Totagera, Nina Sohnius-Wilhelmi, Stefan Leitner, Benedikt Grothe, Carolina Frankl-Vilches, Manfred Gahr (2021) Extensive GJD2 Expression in the Song Motor Pathway Reveals the Extent of Electrical Synapses in the Songbird Brain. Biology 10 (11), 1099

3. ELECTRICAL SYNAPSES AND NEURAL COMPUTATION - Pepe Alcami and Alberto E Pereda (2019) Beyond plasticity: the dynamic impact of electrical synapses on neural circuits. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 20 (5), 253-271.

- Pepe Alcami (2018) Electrical synapses enhance and accelerate interneuron recruitment in response to coincident and sequential excitation. Frontiers in cellular neuroscience 12, 156.

- Pepe Alcami and Alain Marty (2013) Estimating functional connectivity in an electrically coupled interneuron network. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110 (49), E4798-E4807.

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