PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
Anne E. Takesian, Ph.D - Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School
Anne received her PhD from the Center for Neural Science at New York University with thesis advisor Dan H. Sanes, PhD. Her doctoral work, funded by the NIDCD, explored the impact of early sound experience on the development of inhibitory interneurons in auditory cortex. Her doctoral findings inspired her to join the laboratory of Dr. Takao Hensch at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard University to determine if developmental changes in cortical interneurons regulate critical periods for auditory plasticity. These studies, funded by the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation (NLMFF) and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), veered her to focus on cortical layer 1 (L1), a sparse layer of inhibitory interneurons that had been largely ignored in past models for developmental plasticity. Her findings revealed new concepts about how L1 interneurons participate in cortical function and plasticity. Her work remains focused on identifying mechanisms for plasticity and learning within cortical circuits.
POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS
Carolyn Sweeney, Ph.D - Postdoctoral Fellow
Carolyn received her Ph.D. from University of Massachusetts Medical School, where she studied dopamine transporter regulation, and its impact on behavior. In the Takesian laboratory, she studies how neuromodulatory signaling on cortical layer 1 interneurons impacts perceptual learning. Her research is supported by an individual postdoctoral fellowship award (F32) funding from the NIDCD.
Lucas Vattino, Ph.D. - Postdoctoral fellow
Lucas received his Biology undergraduate and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he worked to understand the efferent system that regulates auditory gain in the cochlea. During his postdoctoral research, he is studying a group of interneurons in layer 1of the primary auditory cortex that are key for regulating the circuits underlying sound perception. Lucas is named one of the ten 2019 Pew Latin American fellows.
Maryse Thomas, Ph.D. - Postdoctoral Fellow
Maryse received her PhD in Neuroscience from McGill University where she studied the effects of environmental noise exposure on auditory cortical plasticity. Her postdoctoral research, supported by fellowships from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Fonds de Recherche du Québec Nature et Technologies, focuses on the role of layer 1 interneurons in auditory cortical tuning and perception. In her spare time, Maryse enjoys learning languages, biking, running, and playing ultimate frisbee.
Victor Adenis, Ph.D. - Joint Research Postdoctoral Fellow in Takesian and Lee/Brown Laboratories
Victor received is PhD in Neuroscience from University Paris-Saclay, France. Within the Neuroscience Institute of Paris-Saclay (Neuro-PSI), Victor studied the cortical responses evoked by Cochlear Implants in rodent models with a focus on characterizing the consequences of altering different aspects of the electric stimulation. He is pursuing a collaborative project between the Takesian and Lee/Brown laboratories that aims to characterize the chronic activation of cortical neurons by Auditory Brainstem Implants with two-photon imaging. Victor’s interests lie in better understanding how neuro-prosthetics recruit the auditory pathway to improve hearing restoration.
Zahra Ghasemahmad, Ph.D. - Postdoctoral Fellow
Zahra received her B.S. and M.Sc. in audiology from Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Tehran, Iran. During her work as a clinical audiologist, she became interested in the neural mechanism underlying processing music and speech. For her Ph.D., she joined the laboratory of Dr. Jeff Wenstrup at Northeast Ohio Medical University where she investigated the role of neuromodulators in processing emotional vocal communications in the amygdala. For her Postdoctoral work, after gaining technical and theoretical skills in somatosensory system at Dr. Yang lab at UCR, she joined the Takesian lab where she will be investigating the neural mechanism underlying sensory-driven behaviors by studying large populations of neurons in auditory cortical and motor regions. Outside of work, Zahra enjoys playing music, cooking, traveling, and hiking in nature, and learning about new cultures and languages.
GRADUATE/ Undergraduate students
Christine Junhui Liu - SHBT Ph.D. Student - Harvard Medical School
Christine is a PhD student in the Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology (SHBT) program at Harvard Medical School. She received her Bachelors of Arts in neuroscience and Bachelors of Music in music theory from Northwestern University, where she investigated experiential factors that influence subcortical auditory development in children and teenagers with Dr. Nina Kraus. In the Takesian lab, Christine is interested in the neural mechanisms of auditory plasticity, auditory thalamocortical circuitry, and neuropeptide signaling in auditory processing. Her doctoral research is funded in part by Herschel Smith Doctoral Fellowship, Amelia Peabody Scholarship, and Harvard Center on the Developing Child’s Science and Innovation Fellowship. In her free time, she loves spotting dogs on the Esplanade, cooking, running, swimming, and playing the viola with Longwood Symphony Orchestra.
Wisam Reid - SHBT Ph.D. Student - Harvard Medical School
Inspired by the brain's elegant efficiency, Wisam’s research lies at the intersection of biological and artificial intelligence. Wisam believes a complete unification of theoretical and experimental neuroscience will be required to reveal the neural correlates of intelligence and a general theory of brain plasticity that underlies it. In this effort, Wisam experimentally explores the structure of neural circuits and tests theoretical predictions for plasticity in the auditory cortex of mice using optical measurement and stimulation technologies. In concert, Wisam derives normative, biologically-plausible learning algorithms and builds physics-based models of the neural plasticity mechanisms that are engaged by them. Wisam is currently a PhD student in Speech & Hearing Bioscience & Technology (SHBT) at Harvard Medical School and a Howard Brain Sciences Foundation fellow. Wisam holds a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from UC Berkeley (2014) and has also obtained his master's degree in Music, Science & Technology from Stanford University (2017).
Elliot Chin - Undergraduate Student - Harvard College
Elliot Chin is a junior at Harvard College from San Francisco pursuing a joint concentration in Statistics and Neuroscience. He is interested in leveraging computational techniques to understand circuit dynamics within the auditory cortex. Outside of the lab, he enjoys watching basketball and football and playing guitar.
StAFF
Cathryn MacGregor - Research Technician
Cathryn MacGregor received her B.A. in Neuroscience from Wheaton College in Massachusetts. She spent time working at the Center for Neural Science at NYU researching the neural mechanisms involved in fear based learning. As a lab technician, she works to maintain the animal colony and assists in various aspects of research within the lab. During her undergraduate career, Cathryn was a committed athlete and continues to stay active in her free time.
Alumni
Selorm Quarshie - Undergraduate Student - Harvard College
Selorm Quarshie is a senior at Harvard College concentrating in Neuroscience. He is currently working on a senior thesis that seeks to understand how changes in pupil diameter as a readout for neural activity and serotonin release within the auditory cortex of behaving mice are linked.
Kasey Smith - Research Technician
Kasey received her B.S. in Biological Sciences and M.S. in Behavioral Neuroscience from the University of Connecticut. During her graduate studies, her research focused on auditory perception and discrimination of sounds with varied acoustic properties. She is excited to be involved in the diverse research going on in the lab. She is specifically interested in auditory learning and perception and the effects of pharmacological manipulation on these processes.
Nick Schubert, M.D. - Exchange Ph.D. Student -
University of Groningen/University Medical Center Groningen, Lab of Sonja Pyott
Nick Schubert received his M.D. with honours from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. During his medical studies, he was granted an MD/PhD scholarship from the University of Groningen/University Medical Center Groningen to start a Ph.D. in the lab of Sonja Pyott. His research focusses on identifying molecular and genetic mechanisms underlying hearing loss. He is undertaking a collaborative project in the Takesian lab to study the spatial, temporal and molecular dynamics of microglia in the auditory cortex following noise-induced hearing loss.
Esther Yu - Undergraduate Student - Harvard College
Esther Yu is an incoming junior at Harvard College studying neuroscience. She is mainly interested in how behavioral performance in mice correlates with the plasticity of superficial inhibitory interneurons within the auditory cortex. She is currently researching potential links between learning and locomotion and hopes to eventually help develop a pipeline for the analysis of an auditory perceptual learning task. In her free time, Esther loves playing the cello and sight-reading music with friends.
Ana Castro, MPH - Research Technician
Ana received both her B.A. in Neuroscience and MPH in Biostatistics and Epidemiology from Boston University. Her research in the Takesian Lab is focused on anatomically characterizing layer 1 cortical interneurons and understanding how thalamic inputs converge onto these cells .
Jacob Mclennan - Undergraduate Student - Harvard College
Jacob received his A.B. in neuroscience from Harvard College. In the Takesian lab, Jacob worked on tracing inputs to interneurons in layer 1 of the mouse brain. He helped to develop an auditory perceptual task in which mice are trained to discriminate between tone stimuli. His senior thesis investigated how pharmacological manipulations might affect plasticity and learning of the perceptual task.
Vivek Kanumuri, M.D. - Joint Research Resident in Takesian and Lee/Brown Laboratories
Vivek Kanumuri, MD is a resident physician in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the Harvard Medical School/Massachussetts Eye and Ear. He graduated from Rutgers University - New Jersey Medical School in 2014 with a medical degree and was elected into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society. During his time in medical school he also completed a prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Fellowship where he worked on multiphoton imaging and optical manipulation of epileptic circuits under the mentorship of Dr. Rafael Yuste at Columbia University. He is currently leading a collaborative project between the Takesian and Lee/Brown laboratories to examine the activation of cortical neurons by auditory brainstem implants.
Dongqin Cai, Ph.D. - Joint Postdoctoral Fellow, Polley and Takesian Laboratories
Dongqin received her Ph.D. degree in 2018 from Tsinghua University of Beijing, in China, where she investigated the synaptic and circuit mechanisms of thalamo-cortical pathways. Using in-vivo patch clamp recording, she revealed the critical role of inhibition in the maturation of temporal processing in the auditory cortex. With monosynaptic virus tracing, she established the whole-brain connectivity with non-lemniscal auditory thalamus. Her postdoctoral research in Takesian lab focused on the neurobiology of hyperexcitable brain circuits from synapses to perception.
Angela Zhu, M.D. Candidate, Howard Hughes Medical Research Fellow, University of Miami School of Medicine
Angela received her B.S. in Biological Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and MPhil in Medical Sciences from the University of Cambridge. As a medical student at the University of Miami, she pursued research in the Takesian Lab through the Howard Hughes Medical Research Fellows program, where she studied cortical activation by auditory brainstem implants. She continues to focus on auditory implants in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Froemke at New York University.
Ben Glickman - Research Technician
Ben received his B.A. in Cellular Neuroscience from Colgate University. As a lab technician, he has an invaluable role in maintaining the animal colony for the use of all researchers, and is well-versed in many of the technical aspects of several experimental paradigms used in the lab. His research interests include dissecting the anatomical and connectomic makeup of superficial auditory cortical layers, as well as working to develop and implement improved surgical techniques for intracranial viral injections into deep brain nuclei.
Emma He - Undergraduate Student - Harvard College
Emma received her A.B. in Computational Neuroscience from Harvard College. Her research in the Takesian Lab focused on understanding the cholinergic neuromodulation of of layer 1 cortical inhibitory circuits.