PhD Candidate at the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, NTNU, Norway
Hello and welcome there !
I am a PhD Candidate at the Kavli Institute at NTNU, Trondheim, Norway.
I am a fellow of the Innovative Training Network No 765549 M-GATE receiving funding from the EU.
👩🔬 You can read more about my research here 🧠
About the image used as background: this is a coronal slice of the CA1 region of the hippocampus of a mouse brain. Image was obtained with a confocal microscope at magnitude x20. Blue = DAPI; Green = GCaMP6f; Red = mcherry-C1V1
I am highly interested by how memory works!
In mammals, the hippocampus is one of the main regions implicated in the formation of our episodic memory , memory associated with a context: where was I? With whom? When?
The hippocampus is not the only region that plays a major role in the formation and consolidation of our memories, as it is ultra-connected to several cortical structures like the entorhinal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex and the prefrontal cortex. How all these regions interact is still unclear, however recent technological advances over the last decade are helping to draw an image of the contribution of each structure during memory formation, consolidation and retrieval.
My thesis project is focused on the role of the anterior cingulate cortex in objet memory consolidation, using mice. I am using miniature head-mounted fluorescence microscopes, directly fixed onto the head of freely-behaving animals and enabling the visualization of the neuronal activity using calcium imaging. Using miniscopes is optimal to track the same subset of cells over a long period of time, thus making it adequate to study how are the neuronal dynamics evolving - and memory ! - as time goes by.
During my master’s thesis, I worked on a project focused on the hippocampus and the role of place cells. Place cells are known to fire action potentials in specific places, providing the animal with a cognitive map of its environment (coming back to the “where was I?” feature of the episodic memory). But do place cells also guide and drive navigational behaviour? We investigated this using an all-optical set up, combining simultaneous calcium imaging and optogenetic in mice performing a navigation task in a virtual-reality environment. This study was published in the journal Cell in November 2020 .
Peer-reviewed publications
Robinson NTM, Descamps LAL, …, Häusser M: Targeted Activation of Hippocampal Place Cells Drives Memory-Guided Spatial Behavior; Cell, 2020. doi: 10.1016/j.neures.2020.01.009
Blankvoort S, Descamps LAL, Kentros C: Enhancer-Driven Gene expression (EDGE) enables the generation of cell type specific tools for the analysis of neural circuits; Neuroscience Research, 2020. doi: 10.1016/j.neures.2020.01.009
Posters
Descamps L, Maxey J, Rogerson T, Schnitzer M, Kentros C: Observing consolidation: Calcium imaging of long-term object memory traces in anterior cingulate cortex; 082.07 / Y4; SfN19 meeting, see SfN19 online meeting planner
Descamps L, Kentros C: Calcium imaging of long-term memory traces in Anterior Cingulate Cortex; NRSN PhD conference 2018. Poster and Blitz presentation
Robinson N, Descamps L, Russell L, Schmidt-Hieber C, Häusser M: All-optical manipulation of place cells drives spatially associated behaviour; 604.12 / HHH44; SfN18 meeting, see SfN18 online meeting planner
Robinson N, Descamps L, Russell L, Schmidt-Hieber C, Häusser M: All-optical manipulation of place cells during spatial navigation; F087; FENS2018 meeting, see FENS18 online scientific program
Outreach
Instagram “take-over” on the account of The STEM Squad (14.4k followers as of January 2020)
Between the 7th and 14th of July 2019, I posted about my research and engaged with users on the platform about the following topics: animal welfare in science, how to record from hundred of neurons simultaneously using calcium imaging, career prospects in science after a PhD> Content can be found on the Instagram page, both in classic posts and in the “highlighted stories” under the name Lucie.
🔗 Click here to download my CV
Want to reach out ? You can shoot me an email at lucie.descamps[@]ntnu.no, or find me on Twitter 🐤