Raunak Sinha
Credentials: Neuroscience Department
Position title: Neural signaling in the retina
Email: raunak.sinha@wisc.edu
Phone: 608-263-6265
Address:
5505 Wi Institute Medical Research
1111 Highland Ave
Madison, WI 53705
LAB WEBSITE:
FOCUS GROUPS:
Membrane Biology & Protein Trafficking; Physiology
RESEARCH DESCRIPTION:
Our lab studies how cellular, synaptic and circuit mechanisms shape neural signaling in the retina. We study early visual processing in the retina at different stages. For instance, we study cellular mechanism such as phototransduction by measuring light-evoked electrical responses from photoreceptors and relate that to the underlying molecular and biochemical mechanisms of the G- protein signaling cascade. We are interested in how visual signals are parsed into parallel neural circuits and how each one of them is specialized for encoding a distinct aspect of a natural scene.
We correlate neuronal function with detailed anatomy/wiring and gene expression to build a comprehensive map for neural circuits where we can link mechanisms all the way to circuit function and ultimately perception. Our lab is interested in using this knowledge of basic retinal structure and function in an intact tissue as a baseline testing neuronal function in human stem cell-derived retina.
ALSO A TRAINER IN THE FOLLOWING PROGRAMS: Neuroscience (NTP), Biophysics, Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology (MCP), Cellular and Molecular Pathology (CMP), Endocrinology and Reproductive Physiology (ERP)