Welcome to the Colón-Ramos Lab

A fundamental question in neuroscience is how synapses are assembled in living animals to produce behaviors and store memories. Our lab is focused on this question and uses the nematode  C. elegans to examine the cell biological mechanisms by which synapses are precisely assembled during development, maintained during growth and modified during learning to store memories.

We can scrutinize the interplay between the cell biology of the synapse and behavior at three levels:

• Maturation and Clearance of Autophagosomes in Neurons Depends on a Specific Cysteine Protease Isoform, ATG-4.2.
• Integration of Plasticity Mechanisms within a Single Sensory Neuron of C. elegans Actuates a Memory.
• Clarinet (CLA-1), a novel active zone protein required for synaptic vesicle clustering and release.
• Visualizing Calcium Flux in Freely Moving Nematode Embryos.
• The need to connect on the cell biology of synapses, behaviors, and networks in science.
• Using Stage- and Slit-Scanning to Improve Contrast and Optical Sectioning in Dual-View Inverted Light Sheet Microscopy (diSPIM).