Understanding brain resilience: the interplay of plasticity and regeneration

Brains are not immutable organs: their ability to change is critical for animal survival in different environments. Our vision is to understand how cellular and circuit-level changes enable the plasticity and evolution of brains across timescales, from milliseconds to millennia. My lab uses comparative approaches across individuals and species to identify similarities and differences at the level of neuronal diversity and neural circuit anatomy and function. By studying brain plasticity and evolution, we aim to uncover generalizable principles of brain organization and to discover the substrates of unique species-specific traits.

Dr. Maria Antonietta Tosches is an Assistant Professor at Columbia University. Her lab investigates the evolution, plasticity, and regeneration of vertebrate brains. Dr. Tosches grew up in Italy where she studied Biology at the Scuola Normale Superiore and University of Pisa. She then earned her Ph.D. from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, in the laboratory of Dr. Detlev Arendt. As a postdoc with Dr. Gilles Laurent the at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt, Germany, she used modern cell-type profiling tools to elucidate the evolution of the cerebral cortex. Dr Tosches is a Next Generation Leader at the Allen Institute for Brain Sciences, a McKnight and Rita Allen Scholar, and has been a recipient of the CZI Ben Barres Early Career Acceleration Award and the MIND Prize.

The incredible diversity of the animal kingdom is a treasure trove for discovering new biology. In this MIND Prize project, we will study salamanders, animals that evolved two unique specializations: first, the ability to regenerate complex tissues and entire organs, including the brain, after an injury; second, the plasticity of body and behavior to adapt to two different environments: water and land. By studying how the salamander brain undergoes structural and functional remodeling during plasticity and regeneration, we aim to discover mechanisms of brain resilience to injury and neurodegeneration.