Dr. Dennis Nestvogel

Keywords:
decision-making, sensory processing, thalamocortical network dynamics, oscillations

Research methods:
For our research, we make use of technically challenging intracellular recordings in awake animals, cutting-edge high-density neural recordings, optogenetic manipulations and mouse behavior.

Brief research description:
The overarching goal of my research is to understand how our ability to accurately interpret sensory input depends on our behavioral state, and how this process is disrupted in psychiatric disorders. To adequately interact with their environment, animals including humans need to process incoming sensory signals reliably. However, information processing in the brain is not consistent – it is highly dependent on behavioral state, such as the level of arousal, attention, motor movements and stress. On the neuronal level, behavioral states are associated with distinct recurrent activity patterns and rhythms, which comprise the baseline activity that ultimately gates sensory input. The neural mechanisms that generate these state-dependent neural dynamics are still poorly understood in the waking brain. Understanding these mechanisms is particularly critical in the light of evidence that altered state-dependent activity has been observed in various psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. My research aims to dissect the neural mechanisms that underlie state-dependent neural dynamics and performance in sensory-guided decision-making tasks and to reveal how perturbations in these mechanisms contribute the etiology of psychiatric disorders.

Selected publications:
Sitbon, J.*, Nestvogel, D.*, Kappeler, C.*, Nicolas, A.*, Maciuba, S., Henrion, A., Troudet, R., Courtois, E., Grannec, G., Latapie, V., Barau, C., Le Corvoisier, P., Pietrancosta, N., Henry, C., Leboyer, M., Etain, B., Nosten-Bertrand, M., Martin, T., Rhee, J., & Jamain, S. (2022). CADPS functional mutations in patients with bipolar disorder increase the sensitivity to stress. Molecular Psychiatry, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-021-01151-9  *Co-first authors

Nestvogel, D. B., & McCormick, D. A. (2021). Visual thalamocortical mechanisms of waking state-dependent activity and alpha oscillations. Neuron, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2021.10.005

Nestvogel, D.B., Merino, R.M., Leon-Pinzon, C., Schottdorf, M., Lee, C., Imig, C., Brose, N., and Rhee, J.-S. (2020). The Synaptic Vesicle Priming Protein CAPS-1 Shapes the Adaptation of Sensory Evoked Responses in Mouse Visual Cortex. Cell Reports 30, 3261–3269.e4.

McCormick, D. A., Nestvogel, D. B., & He, B. J. (2020). Neuromodulation of Brain State and Behavior. Annual Review of Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-neuro-100219-105424

Neske, G.T., Nestvogel, D., Steffan, P.J., and McCormick, D.A. (2019). Distinct Waking States for Strong Evoked Responses in Primary Visual Cortex and Optimal Visual Detection Performance. J. Neurosci. 39, 10044–10059.