Susan McConnell





			Susan McConnell Title Associate Professor Department Biological Sciences Research Interests Developmental neurobiology; determination of neuronal fates in mammalian CNS; mechanism of axon guidance during development. Email suemcc@stanford.edu Phone 725-8786 Fax 725-9832 Address Herrin Labs Rm 115 Mail Code: 5020 http://www.stanford.edu/group/skmlab/ Faculty Research Description Susan K. McConnell has pioneered studies of how the fates of neurons in the mammalian brain are determined during development. She has challenged young neurons to alter their normal fates by placing them in a foreign environment, and has found that at least some brain neurons are committed to following their normal pattern of development at the time of their final mitotic division. She is particularly interested in how individual neurons know where they should sit in the brain and with which neurons they should form specific axonal connections. Neurons of the cerebral cortex of mammals are generated near the lateral ventricle. They then migrate into the developing cortex, where they differentiate and form axonal connections with discrete sets of target neurons. Ultimately it is this specificity in the formation of neuronal connections that enables us to perform complicated and coordinated behaviors. Professor McConnell1s laboratory uses a variety of methods to examine the processes by which young cortical neurons become committed to subserving unique functions in the brain, including transplantation, time-lapse imaging, and molecular biological techniques. The laboratory is also eager to identify and characterize the progenitor cells that give rise to neurons, and to explore the processes by which young neurons locate their correct targets among hundreds of thousands of other neurons in the brain. The ultimate goal of all of these experiments is to explore the cellular and molecular mechanisms of neuronal commitment in the mammalian brain. Weimann JM, Zhang YA, Levin ME, Devine P, Brulet P, McConnell SK (1999) Cortical neurons require Otx1 for the refinement of exuberant axonal projections to subcortical targets. Neuron 24:819-831. Hébert JM, McConnell SK (2000) Targeted introduction of Cre into the BF-1 locus mediates loxP recombination in the telencephalon and other developing head structures. Submitted. Frantz, G. D. and McConnell, S. K. (1996). Restriction of late cerebral cortical progenitors to an upper-layer fate. Neuron 17, 55-61. Chenn, A., S.K. McConnell. 1995. Cleavage orientation and the asymmetric inheritance of Notch 1 immunoreactivity in mammalian neurogenesis. Cell 82:631-641. McConnell, S.K. and C.E. Kaznowski. 1991. Cell cycle dependence of laminar determination in developing neocortex. Science 254:282-285. Areas of Study Systems/Behavioral Neuroscience Cellular Neurobiology Molecular Neurobiology Developmental Neuroscience SBRC Ph.D.