Alex Chen

Alex Chen

@alexbchen.bsky.social

PhD student @ Harvard with Florian Engert and HHMI Janelia with Misha Ahrens. Searching for the molecular, cellular, and circuit underpinnings of behavior.

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Alex Chen
@alexbchen.bsky.social

Excited to share that the astrocyte-centered half of my thesis work is now out @science.org ! With @mishaahrens.bsky.social and @marcduque.bsky.social science.org/doi/10.1126/... 1/8

science.orgNorepinephrine changes behavioral state through astroglial purinergic signalingBoth neurons and glia communicate through diffusible neuromodulators; however, how neuron-glial interactions in such neuromodulatory networks influence circuit computation and behavior is unclear. Dur...
Alex Chen
@alexbchen.bsky.social

Check out this article in @quantamagazine.bsky.social about how astrocytes influence neural activity, including our work from last year! www.quantamagazine.org/once-thought...

quantamagazine.orgOnce Thought To Support Neurons, Astrocytes Turn Out To Be in Charge | Quanta MagazineNew experiments reveal how astrocytes tune neuronal activity to modulate our mental and emotional states. The results suggest that neuron-only brain models, such as connectomes, leave out a crucial la...

Alex Chen reposted

Harvard_MCB
@harvardmcb.bsky.social

New Stars in Neural Circuits: Astrocytes Guide Brain State Changes 🧪🧠 #AcademicSky www.mcb.harvard.edu/department/n... @alexbchen.bsky.social @marcduque.bsky.social @mishaahrens.bsky.social @rachellegaudet.bsky.social @dulaclab.bsky.social @harvardbrainsci.bsky.social @scinews.bsky.social

mcb.harvard.eduNew Stars in Neural Circuits: Astrocytes Guide Brain State Changes - Harvard University - Department of Molecular & Cellular BiologyAstrocytes, the most abundant non-neuronal cell type in the brain, have traditionally been thought of as passive supporters of neuronal circuits. However, in recent years, work from many […]
Alex Chen
@alexbchen.bsky.social

It appears possible that an ancient role for the NAP motif may have been to implement inhibition to counteract prolonged, perhaps runaway excitation. Nevertheless, continuing to identify circuits and behavioral contexts recruiting this pathway is an exciting future direction. 7/8

Alex Chen
@alexbchen.bsky.social

That similar pathways exist in flies, fish, and mammals suggests the existence of an evolutionarily conserved, canonical norepinephrine-astrocyte-purinergic signaling motif (NAP motif?) 5/8

Alex Chen
@alexbchen.bsky.social

In our study, the NAP motif seems to mediate feedforward inhibition: it is activated by contexts requiring strong activation of circuits during futility-induced struggle to prevent prolonged futile struggling. 6/8

Alex Chen
@alexbchen.bsky.social

The second by @kevinguttenplan.bsky.social in Marc Freeman's lab on gating of astrocyte responses to many transmitters by tyramine (an invertebrate norepinephrine analog) in flies, building on earlier work from the lab on astrocytes and ATP in larval fly behavior. science.org/doi/10.1126/... 4/8

science.orgGPCR signaling gates astrocyte responsiveness to neurotransmitters and control of neuronal activityHow astrocytes regulate neuronal circuits is a fundamental question in neurobiology. Specifically, how astrocytes respond to different neurotransmitters in vivo and how they affect downstream circuit ...
Alex Chen
@alexbchen.bsky.social

Excited that my co-first author manuscript is now published! Special shoutout to Xuelong Mi in Guoqiang Yu's group, who did all of the development of this fantastic tool, which I’ve applied to segment neuromodulatory and astroglial calcium signals. www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

cell.comFast, accurate, and versatile data analysis platform for the quantification of molecular spatiotemporal signalsAQuA2 is a powerful data analysis platform that decomposes time-lapse imaging datasets into elementary signaling events, allowing for accurate quantification of spatiotemporal molecular activity patte...

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