News

Interview on Radio Citta’ Fujiko

2011-04-23T12:20:00.006+02:00

Radio Citta' Fujiko, an italian free broadcasting company located in Bologna, featured our recent publication on PLoS Computational Biology. On behalf of my collaborators Dr. Daniele Linaro and Prof. Marco Storace, I represented our team in an interview aired on Saturday 23 2011, by Fabio De Sicot on his Scientific broadcasting program "Caccia al Fotone" (in italian).
Click here to listen to an excerpt of such a broadcasting, as a mp3 file.

Paper Published on PLoS Computational Biology

2011-03-10T16:00:00.002+01:00

Our article entitled “Accurate and Fast Simulation of Channel Noise in Conductance-Based Model Neurons by Diffusion Approximation” will be published in PLoS Computational Biology today at 2pm Pacific Time!!

PLoS website has online functionality allowing readers to rate articles, add short notes to specific sections of your article, and provide general comments about the manuscript as a whole.

Best poster award

2009-05-24T17:12:00.003+02:00

Ghent, Thursday, May 7th 2009: Michele Giugliano received the best poster award for his selected contribution to the Knowledge for Growth congress, a life sciences convention organized every year by Flanders Bio and held in Ghent.

Our study published on Nature Nanotech.

2009-01-01T18:09:00.003+01:00

On December 21st 2008, Nature Nanotechnology published online our work entitled "Carbon nanotubes might improve neuronal performance by favouring electrical shortcuts".

The news of its publication has been covered by national and international newspapers.

Interview on Rai Radio 3 Scienza

2009-01-01T17:35:00.005+01:00

RAI Radio 3, the Italian State Broadcasting Company, featured our recent publication on Nature Nanotechnology with a brief interview December 29 2008, with Luca Tancredi Barone on "Radio 3 Scienza" (in italian).
Click here to listen to an excerpt of such a broadcasting, as a mp3 file.

Nature-Podcast and Nature-NeuroPod cover our Nanotubes research

2008-11-27T20:53:00.011+01:00

Each week Nature publishes a free audio show. It's hosted by Adam Rutherford and Kerri Smith and features reporters Charlotte Stoddart, Geoff Brumfiel and Natasha Gilbert. Every show features highlighted content from the week's edition of Nature including interviews with the people behind the science, and in-depth commentary and analysis from journalists covering science around the world.

In the edition of Nov 27th 2008, Kerri Smith brought us the highlights from this year's Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington DC. She also featured the story on Nature News (original link here)!

Listen also to Kerri Smith's special Neuroscience Podcast, Neuropod !

Panorama features an interview with M.G. !

2008-11-15T01:53:00.003+01:00

This week issue of "Panorama", a widespread italian magazine, features an interview with ..me!

Donatella Marino decided to cover the intriguing combination of nanotechnologies and neuroscience, which forms a common ground of my recent research interests.

Science Prize "Citta' di Ponzano Romano" to M.G. !!!

2008-10-13T21:16:00.004+02:00

Sabato 11 Ottobre 2008

Questa mattina alla Casa delle Culture a piazza Santa Mari, il sindaco di Ponzano Romano, Enzo De Santis, consegnerà il “Premio Ponzano Romano per la Scienza” al professor Michele Giugliano, un giovane ricercatore genovese, docente di neuroscienze e neuroingegneria all’Università di Anversa. Il docente, che ha appena 34 anni, si è distinto a livello internazionale per la ricerca sul cervello umano.

La seconda edizione del premio, la cui giuria è presieduta dal prof. Alberto Oliverio della Sapienza, consiste nel primo riconoscimento in denaro (5.000 euro) messo a disposizione da un comune di pochi abitanti. Un piccolo ma prezioso contributo da Ponzano Romano per aiutare la ricerca ed evitare la fuga degli scienziati all’estero.
R. P. G.

Gained the cover of "Cerebral Cortex", September 2008

2008-08-22T19:15:00.004+02:00

Carbon Nanotubes and Cultured Neurons: a nanoneuroscience vignette

2008-06-13T16:16:00.002+02:00

A review paper on "Interactions Between Cultured Neurons and Carbon Nanotubes: a Nanoneuroscience Vignette" will appear on the first issue of the new Journal of Nanoneuroscience.

A preprint is available for download here.

Carbon nanotubes, owing to their electrical, chemical, mechanical and thermal properties, are one of the most promising nanomaterials for the electronics, computer and aerospace industries. More recently, these unique materials are finding their niche in neuroscience. Here, we discuss the use of carbon nanotubes as scaffolds for neuronal growth. The chemical properties of carbon nanotubes can be systematically varied by attaching different functional groups. Such functionalized carbon nanotubes can be used to control the outgrowth and branching pattern of neuronal processes. We also discuss electrical interactions between neurons and carbon nanotubes. The electrical properties of nanotubes can provide a mechanism to monitor or stimulate neurons through the scaffold itself. The ease of which carbon nanotubes can be patterned makes them attractive for studying the organization of neural networks and has the potential to develop new devices for neural prosthesis. We note that additional toxicity studies of carbon nanotubes are necessary so that exposure guidelines and safety regulations can be set.

Professorship & New Lab

2008-06-08T22:34:00.000+02:00

I am honored to accept the appointment at the University of Antwerp (Belgium), where I will officially start on October 1st 2008.
I will formally remain linked to the Brain Mind Institute of the EPFL as "visiting professor".

FlandersBio Neuro Cafe': keynote presentation

2008-06-08T22:23:00.006+02:00

On Friday June 20th, FlandersBio organizes an informal evening meeting called "Neuro Café" in Mechelen (Belgium). The topic of this event is Neural Engineering and it ams at initiating new ideas and providng solutions to needs that are perceived in clinical practice.

The following topics have been selected for the brainstorm sessions:

The use of stem cells in neurology – Prof. Boon, MD, PhD - Ugent

Neurology and nanotechnology – Prof. Bartic, PhD - IMEC Leuven

Visualization and stimulation of the brain – Mr. De Ridder, MD, PhD - UZ Antwerpen

Neurology and implants – Mr. Delbeke, MD, PhD - UCL

I will warm up the meeting with a keynote presentation.

"Frontiers in Neuroengineering" launched!

2008-03-27T14:18:00.001+01:00

A new open-access peer-review scientific journal has been launched to explore the Frontiers in Neuroengineering.

This is a first-tier electronic journal devoted to promoting research integrating neuroengineering, nanotechnologies and neurosciences. Convergence between neurobiology and quantum-, nano- and micro-sciences is particularly emphasized as an extremely promising way towards substantial discoveries in brain research and as a technological foundation for future neuroprosthetics and brain-machine interfacing. This interdisciplinary approach that involves neuroengineering, modeling, nanotechnology, imaging, and the development of micromachining and other devices to solve important emerging problems in clinical neurosciences, opens great new challenges. We therefore invite original contributions on a wide range of topics that present the fruit of such interdisciplinary convergence or that provide stimuli for future alliances. We aim to provide an interactive forum for cutting-edge studies on the nervous system, on new materials and techniques for interfacing neurons with artificial devices, on novel molecular tools to probe the complexity of the brain at the system-, network-, cellular-, subcellular- and molecular levels. We also aim to promulgate the best interdisciplinary research to the broader neuroscience community. Our goals include advancing the core technologies and materials as a foundation for future neuroprosthetics and artificial interfaces, while enhancing our understanding of the brain. Although experimental research is the primary focus of the journal, projects integrating theoretical and quantitative modeling approaches at all levels of complexity are welcome.

The InnerSpace Foundation

2008-02-21T17:37:00.005+01:00

I am honored to accept the invitation to join a prestigious board of scientific advisers at the InnerSpace Foundation.

This foundation is a non-profit organization promoting and supporting Neuroengineering. The main effort is towards those brain-machine approaches aimed at enhancing memory and learning. These are future achievements with definitely a great potential to improve the lives of healthy people and of those suffering from brain disfunctions.

New paper published on "Cerebral Cortex" !

2008-02-11T17:52:00.000+01:00

The Dynamical Response Properties of Neocortical Neurons to Temporally Modulated Noisy Inputs In Vitro
by Harold Kondgen; Caroline Geisler; Stefano Fusi; Xiao-Jing Wang; Hans-Rudolf Luscher; _Michele Giugliano_

has been just published by Oxford in *Cerebral Cortex* !!
[http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/bhm235v1]

Cortical neurons are often classified by current–frequency relationship. Such a static description is inadequate to interpret neuronal responses to time-varying stimuli. Theoretical studies suggested that single-cell dynamical response properties are necessary to interpret ensemble responses to fast input transients. Further, it was shown that input-noise linearizes and boosts the response bandwidth, and that the interplay between the barrage of noisy synaptic currents and the spike-initiation mechanisms determine the dynamical properties of the firing rate. To test these model predictions, we estimated the linear response properties of layer 5 pyramidal cells by injecting a superposition of a small-amplitude sinusoidal wave and a background noise.
We characterized the evoked firing probability across many stimulation trials and a range of oscillation frequencies (1–1000 Hz), quantifying response amplitude and phase-shift while changing noise statistics. We found that neurons track unexpectedly fast transients, as their response amplitude has no attenuation up to 200 Hz. This cut-off frequency is higher than the limits set by passive membrane properties (~50 Hz) and average firing rate (~20 Hz) and is
not affected by the rate of change of the input. Finally, above 200 Hz, the response amplitude decays as a power-law with an exponent that is independent of voltage fluctuations induced by the background noise.

*Key Words:* dynamics • frequency response • noise • oscillations • pyramidal cell •somatosensory cortex

The new website is online!

2008-02-11T03:18:00.001+01:00

The new, restyled and essential web site is online..!

M