Juan Arellano, PhD

I studied Biology with a focus on Zoology in Spain (Complutense University in Madrid) and pursued a PhD in neuroscience under the supervision of Javier DeFelipe in the Instituto Cajal in Madrid studying the pathology of the human hippocampus in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy that got me deeply interested in the structure and organization of the cortex.

My next chapter was a postdoctoral study focused in the synapsis features of dendritic spines in the cortex of rodents, under shared supervision by Javier DeFelipe and Rafael Yuste from Columbia University in NYC, and from there I moved to Yale University to work with Pasko Rakic on developmental aspects of the cortex including the basic features of the proliferative dynamics of radial glia, the dynamics of primary cilia during corticogenesis, the possible mechanisms governing gyrification in large brains or contributing to unravel the genomic control of cortical development through transcriptomic analysis.

Currently, I am focused on the dynamics and functional impact of protracted developmental features such as hippocampal neurogenesis in mammals, and the potential meaning of their absence in humans.