Professor Alicia Hidalgo

Supervisor Details

Contact Details

School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham

Scientific Background

Research Interests

We investigate structural plasticity and degeneration, regeneration and repair in the central nervous system (CNS). We want to understand how the brain changes throughout life, in response to stimulation or to challenges and how structural brain plasticity and degeneration modify brain function and behaviour. Experience can modify connectivity patterns, enabling us to learn and adapt to the changes we go through in life. Conversely, in brain diseases these processes can be impaired and overridden by synaptic, neurite and cell loss. We want to understand how experience shapes the brain. A dramatic challenge to the nervous system is damage, as in injury. We want to understand how cells respond to damage and whether it is possible to induce regeneration after injury. We use the fruit-fly Drosophila for its powerful genetics and in vivo neurobiology spanning from genes, to cells, neural circuits and behaviour. Our approach combines genetics, molecular biology (eg CRISPR gene editing), cell culture, in vivo confocal microscopy, thermo- and opto-genetics manipulation of neuronal activity, imaging and behavioural analyses. Our findings have an impact in understanding brain health (eg learning, adaptation), the molecular basis of brain disease (eg neurodegenerative, psychiatric) and regeneration after damage or injury.

Research Groups

Hidalgo Lab

Birmingham Fly Facility

Centre for Neurogenetics

Structural and Molecular Cell Biology

Birmingham Neuroscience

Supervision Style

In three words or phrases: Goal-oriented, organised, collaborative

Provision of Training

I will be your direct supervisor, but you will be trained on different techniques and methods by different people in my team, as well as myself.

As you progress, you might also need to learn and use techniques which could be new and unfamiliar to our lab. In these cases, we will find advice from others and from publications. It’s good not to be scared of learning new things.

Progression Monitoring and Management

I meet with each of my PhD students once a week to discuss progress. We set out expectations of what could and should be achieved on a weekly and monthly basis, we discuss research questions and aims, hypotheses, how to test them, experimental design and data quality. If problems emerge, we discuss a plan of action together.

We also have group meetings once a week, at which each team member presents a progress report, we discuss literature and findings, etc.

Communication

I lead an open, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic team, in which people talk, give opinions and discuss. We meet up, for lunch, go out, have team activities together. I prefer face-to-face conversations, we also share WhatsApp and Slack channels, and of course email is also used routinely. We communicate a lot!

PhD Students can expect scheduled meetings with me:

In a group meeting

At least once a week

In year 1 of PhD study

At least once a week

In year 2 of PhD study

At least once a week

In year 1 of PhD study

At least once a fortnight, often still once a week, it varies

These meetings will be mainly face to face, and I am usually contactable for an instant response every working day. However, not necessarily all day. I divide my day in two chunks: in the morning, my door is always open, and I am available instantly. In the afternoons I close my door because I need to concentrate, and it is best not to disturb me and talk to me next morning instead.

Working Pattern

The timing of work in my lab is flexible, within reason. I do not police arrival and departure times and I expect students to manage their own time, but I also expect them to overlap with the other team members for most of the day. This is very important for training and sharing know-how.

Notice Period for Feedback

I need at least 1 week’s notice to provide feedback on written work of up to 5000 words.

MIBTP Project Details

Primary supervisor for:

How experience shapes the brain: molecular mechanisms of brain plasticity and degeneration

See the PhD Opportunities section to see if this project is currently open for applications via MIBTP.

Please Note: The main page lists projects via BBSRC Research Theme(s) quoted and then relevant Topic(s).

How experience shapes the brain: molecular mechanisms of brain plasticity and degeneration

Secondary Supervisor(s): Professor Stephane De Brito

University of Registration: University of Birmingham

BBSRC Research Themes:

Understanding the Rules of Life (Immunology, Neuroscience and Behaviour)

Project Outline

How does experience shape the brain? We aim to understand why distinct experiences result in adaptation through learning, whilst others can lead to unsurmountable stress, psychiatric and behavioural disorders. We will test the hypothesis that experience results in structural modifications to cells that alter neural circuit connectivity patterns that in turn modify behaviour. The brain is made up of mostly water and molecules such as proteins, lipids and sugars that decay every day, so we eat and sleep to restore daily our cell biology. Synapses and changes in cell shape are made and unmade every day, as we go about our lives. And if cells change, connectivity patterns in the brain change: what are the consequences to behaviour, what we do, how we feel?

The brain is plastic: structural plasticity enable us to form new synapses and connectivity patterns as we learn and adapt to life challenges, encoding memory. Structural homeostasis constrains the brain’s ability to change, thus maintaining neural circuits stable. Exercise and learning increase structural plasticity, whilst homeostatic meachanism can lead to degeneration underlying neurodegenerative diseases (e.g. Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s), neuro-inflammation and psychiatric disorders (e.g. depression). The cellular processes underlying structural brain change include neurogenesis and gliogenesis, cell loss, changes in cell shape, synapse formation and loss, modifying circuits an behaviour. As behaviour is a source of experience, we aim to find out how cycles of experience and behaviour modify our brain throughout life.

The aim of the project is to discover and test candidate molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the switch between structural brain plasticity and degeneration in response to experience, and how this in turn modifies behaviour. The resulting findings will help understand how the brain works, how we can maintain brain health and what causes brain disease.

APPLY HERE

Molecular and cellular mechanisms of central nervous system regeneration

See the PhD Opportunities section to see if this project is currently open for applications via MIBTP.

Please Note: The main page lists projects via BBSRC Research Theme(s) quoted and then relevant Topic(s).

Molecular and cellular mechanisms of central nervous system regeneration

Secondary Supervisor(s): Professor Zubair Ahmed

University of Registration: University of Birmingham

BBSRC Research Themes:

Integrated Understanding of Health (Regenerative Biology)

Project Outline

The aim is to discover and test candidate molecular mechanisms underlying central nervous system (CNS) (ie spinal cord and brain) regeneration. The human CNS does not regenerate after injury or disease. However, some animals can regenerate their CNS. Furthermore, the human brain is plastic, meaning it can undergo change, enabling neurogenesis, gliogenesis, formation of new synapses and connections in response to challenges. This means that regeneration of cells and connections in the spinal cord or brain after damage could be possible. Animals that can regenerate their CNS do so by inducing de novo neurogenesis followed by integration of new neurons into functional neural circuits. In humans, new neurons are made daily during learning, and these new neurons also integrate into functional circuits. This means that cells can ‘know’ how to re-establish cell populations and circuits. It may possible to tap into the regenerative potential of the CNS to direct regeneration after injury and damage. Here, we will investigate the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying regeneration in the CNS: neurogenesis, gliogenesis, cell growth, generation of new connectivity patterns and synapses, and integration into neural circuits to result in functional, restored behaviour.

We will use the fruit-fly Drosophila as a model organism for its powerful genetics and molecular cell biology (e.g. CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing), transcriptomics, laser scanning confocal microscopy, computational imaging approaches for analysis of images and movies, stimulating neuronal function with opto- and thermo-genetics in vivo, and recording and analysing fruit-fly behaviour. We will strive to extrapolate the relevance of our findings to the mammalian and human condition.

Reference:

Harrison, et al (2021) Regenerative neurogenesis is induced from glia by Ia-2 driven neuron-glia communication. eLife10:e58756 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.58756

APPLY HERE