Contact
All People

Silvia Viana da Silva

Position
PI, Board Member
Project/s

B02

Institute

Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen e. V. (DZNE)

Berlin

Imagine we’re in an elevator and you have until we reach our floor to pitch your project/idea.

What’s your elevator pitch?

We aim to investigate the functional and structural rewiring of inhibitory connections in the hippocampus of mice upon spatial encoding. We will determine whether sharp-wave ripples, an oscillation characteristic from the hippocampus, have a critical role in this re-wiring.

What fascinates you about your project?

The combination of techniques (volume electron microscopy and in vivo recordings) that will allow linking diverse levels of physiology: from behavior to brain oscillations to ultrastructure of synapses.

How did you come to work in the field of Neuroscience?

Ever since I learned how a chemical synapse worked, during my first year of Biology degree, I have been fascinated to understand how memories are stored on these nanometer sized structures and how they are impaired in the context of dementia.

What does your family think you do for a living?

My family thinks I am a researcher studying the brain. They also think I implant antennas in the head of little mice to understand how some people have dementia.