Brasenose College, Oxford - Professor Peter Somogyi
Professor Peter Somogyi
Name
Peter Somogyi, FRS, Professor of Neurobiology
Brasenose Status
Senior Kurti Fellow
Role
Director, Medical Research Council, Anatomical Neuropharmacology Unit, University Department of Pharmacology
Subject
Neuroscience
Qualifications
MSc, Biology; PhD, Cell Biology, DSc, Neuroscience, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Academic Background
Peter Somogyi graduated in biology and received his Ph.D. in cell biology at the Eötvös Lorànd University, Budapest, Hungary. His research training included neurocytology with Istvan Benedeczky and neuroanatomy with Janos Szentagothai at the Semmelweis Medical School, Budapest, biochemistry with A. David Smith and Ian Chubb at the University of Oxford, and immunocytochemistry with Claudio Cuello at Oxford and a postdoctoral fellowship with Ian Chubb at Flinders Medical Centre, South Australia. He has been training research students since 1978. In 1985 he was invited to become Associate, later Co-Director of the Medical Research Council Anatomical Neuropharmacology Unit at the University Department of Pharmacology, Oxford. He became Director from October 1998. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society (2000), the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (2004), the German National (Leopoldina) Academy (2006) and the Academia Europaea (2009).
Teaching
MSc Neuroscience Course
Research Interests
Neurobiology, the spatial and temporal organisation of brain centres, in particular the cerebral cortex. Nervous systems evolved in order to assist the organism in its interactions with the external and internal environments. Brian functions concentrate into centres, operations into circuits, processing steps into distinct cells and communication sites into subcellular domains. An explicit definition of the cellular connections, molecular machineries and dynamic behaviour of neurones in time as members of large assemblies helps to explain normal and pathological brain activity on time scales from a few thousandth of a second to behavioural sequences.
Publications include
Fuentealba, P., Klausberger, T., Karayannis, T., Suen, W.Y., Huck, J., Tomioka, R., Rockland, K., Capogna, M., Studer, M., Morales, M. & Somogyi, P. (2010) Expression of COUP-TFII nuclear receptor in restricted GABAergic neuronal populations in the adult rat hippocampus. J. Neurosci. 30:1595-1609.
Klausberger, T. & Somogyi, P. (2008) Neuronal diversity and temporal dynamics: the unity of hippocampal circuit operations. Science. 321:53-57.
Fuentealba, P., Begum, R., Capogna, M., Jinno, S., Marton, L.F., Csicsvari, J., Thomson, A. Somogyi, P. & Klausberger, T. (2008) Ivy cells: a population of nitric oxide-producing, slow-spiking GABAergic neurons and their involvement in hippocampal network activity. Neuron 57:917-929.
Wulff et al. From synapse to behaviour: rapid modulation of defined neuronal types with engineered GABAA receptors. Nat. Neurosci. 2007, 10, 923-929.
Agid et al. How can drug discovery for psychiatric disorders be improved? Nature Rev Drug Discovery, 2007, 6, 189-201.
Lamsa et al. Anti-Hebbian long-term potentiation in the hippocampal feedback inhibitory circuit. Science, 2007, 315, 1262-1266.
Klausberger et al. Complementary roles of cholecystokinin-and parvalbumin-expressing GABAergic neurons in hippocampal network oscillations. J. Neurosci., 2005, 25, 9782-9793.
Lin et al. Climbing fiber innervation of NG2-expressing glia in the mammalian cerebellum. Neuron, 2005, 46, 773-785.
Somogyi & Klausberger. Defined types of cortical interneurone structure space and spike timing in the hippocampus. J. Physiol., 2005, 562, 9-26.
Klausberger et al. Spike timing of dendrite-targeting bistratified cells during hippocampal network oscillations in vivo. Nat. Neurosci. 2004, 7:41.
Klausberger et al. Brain state- and cell type-specific firing of hippocampal interneurons in vivo. Nature, 2003, 421:844.
Somogyi et al. Salient features of synaptic organisation in the cerebral cortex. Brain Res Rev 1998, 26:113-135.
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