| Dr Anna Schneider is a member of the research team headed by our faculty members Farzan Nadim and Dirk Bucher. She completed her PhD at the University of Cologne, Germany, studying neural circuits controlling locomotion. The 2-year Research Fellowship by the German Research Foundation (DFG) was awarded to continue her work on understanding how neural circuits can produce consistent activity across individuals in the face of high variability of underlying nerve cell and synaptic properties. Prior results from the work of Dr Schneider and others suggests that a key role is played by the convergent actions of different neuromodulator substances that tune these properties. She is using electrophysiology and membrane biophysics techniques to test her hypotheses in an experimental preparation uniquely suited to study fundamental principles of neural circuit operation, the stomatogastric nervous system of crustaceans. |  |