Neuronal mechanisms of memory encoding and linking across time
Jiannis Taxidis
CRANIA
Jiannis Taxidis
Jiannis Taxidis is a Scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children (Neurosciences and Mental Health program) and an Assistant Professor at the Physiology Department at the University of Toronto.
He received his BSc in Physics from the Aristotle University (Greece), his MSc in Applied Mathematics from Utrecht University (Netherlands) and his PhD in Mathematical Sciences, with a focus on computational neuroscience, from Nottingham University (UK). During his PhD and his first postdoctoral position at Caltech (California), under the supervision of Prof. Christof Koch, he worked on complex computational modelling of hippocampal networks and intricate mathematical analyses of electrophysiological data, related to memory consolidation processes. In his second postdoctoral position at UCLA in Professor Peyman Golshani’s lab, he made a radical transition to in vivo hippocampal imaging experiments coupled with memory-driven behavior in mice.
His lab combines cutting-edge imaging methods (two-photon calcium imaging, voltage imaging and holographic optogenetics) applied to awake behaving mice, as well as computational modeling. His goal is to understand how neuronal circuits collectively encode experiences and the temporal intervals between them, how they store those as memory and how these processes are disrupted in conditions associated with memory deficits.