Neural silence and early brain activity

Welcome to our website – we study how the brain develops.

Neurons usually “talk” by sending fast electrical signals called spikes. If I asked you to picture your brain falling completely silent for multiple seconds, you might think of coma, anesthesia, or even death. Yet, silence is how every brain starts out. The video above captures the real-time activity of hundreds of neurons in a healthy mouse. Each circle is a spike, a rare event drowned in an ocean of silence. These long silent phases are a hallmark of early brain development; just one of many mysteries that make this period so fascinating. This is what we study in the Chini lab. We focus on early development because we still know surprisingly little about it. More importantly, it is becoming increasingly clear that what happens in this phase has lifelong consequences, and is likely to be the key to understanding many neurological and psychiatric disorders. By uncovering how neural activity emerges from silence, we aim to understand how it shapes our brains for the rest of our lives.