Pharmacology

University of Oxford
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Dr Karri Lamsa

Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow
Plasticity in identified inhibitory circuits in the brain

Research Areas

Medical Sciences Division Themes

  • Neuroscience

Group Members

  • Ms Wiebke Nissen, DPhil Student
  • Dr Andras Szabo, Research Technician
  • Ms Wendy Tynan, Technician (part-time)
  • Ms Petrina Lau, DPhil Student
  • Mr Tamas Bellak, The Physiological Society's International Junior Research Grant, University of Szeged, Hungary
  • Mr Douglas Asede, visitor (9/2009-), University of Oulu, Finland

Collaborators

  • Prof P Somogyi, MRC ANU, Oxford
  • Prof Ole Paulsen, Department of Physiology, Development & Neuroscience, University of Cambridge
  • Prof Antal Nógrádi, Department of Ophthalmology, University of Szeged

Department Department of Pharmacology
Dr Karri Lamsa

Karri Lamsa

Key Research Areas

  • Excitatory transmission onto identified hippocampal inhibitory interneurons
  • Learning-related plasticity of inhibitory circuits in the hippocampus
  • Inhibitory circuits in schizophrenia animal model

  • Interneurons in medial entorhinal cortex

 

 

Sources of Funding

Biography

Karri Lämsä graduated form the University of Helsinki, Finland receiving a BSc and MSc in Animal Physiology in 1995. He remained at the University of Helsinki and went on to get his PhD in Neurophysiology in 2000.

His thesis investigated paradoxical excitatory actions of the inhibitory synaptic neurotransmitter, GABA, in the brain. During this time he visited INSERM in Paris and worked with Professor Yehezekel Ben-Ari for six months concentrating on the role of GABA in spontaneous cortical activity during early postnatal development.

In 2002 he joined the laboratory of Professor Dimitri Kullmann at UCL, London for postdoctoral training as a Wellcome Trust Travelling Research Fellow. With Professor Kullmann, he discovered that pathway-specific lasting synaptic strengthening occurs at excitatory synapses which drive local inhibitory cells in hippocampus.  In collaboration with Professor Peter Somogyi in the MRC Anatomical Neuropharmacology Unit in Oxford, they found that the plasticity at these synapses shows cell type-specificity. Moreover, they discovered that plasticity differs between different types of inhibitory circuits in the same cortical area. Dr Lämsä joined the Department of Pharmacology in September 2007 as a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow.