Welcome Dr. Jiannis Taxidis
We would like to welcome Dr. Jiannis Taxidis (Assistant Professor, Department of Physiology; Scientist, Program in Neurosciences & Mental Health, SickKids Research Institute), to the CPIN Program.
In his undergraduate and MSc studies, Dr. Taxidis was trained on physics and applied mathematics. During his PhD (Nottingham University, UK) and first postdoctoral work (Caltech, CA), he developed complex computational models of memory processes, as well as analytical methods for electrophysiological data. In his second postdoc (UCLA, CA), he transitioned to conducting experiments. He used calcium imaging, optogenetic manipulations and cutting-edge voltage imaging in awake animals engaged in memory-driven behavior.
The goal of the Taxidis lab, at SickKids and the Department of Physiology, is to understand how neuronal circuits collectively encode our experiences and the temporal intervals between them, how they store those as memory and how these processes go awry in conditions associated with memory deficits. To address these questions, Dr. Taxidis combines his dual expertise on (i) in vivo imaging methods and (ii) computational and mathematical analyses. This holistic Systems Neuroscience approach gives the Taxidis lab a unique opportunity to investigate how hippocampal networks coordinate learning a context and its temporal structure, and how these networks are disrupted in brain disorders, particularly schizophrenia.
