Warm congratulations to MRC Unit student Demi Brizee for winning the Gotch Memorial Prize 2022-2023, which is awarded by the board of management to a graduate student in the field of physiology with the best Oxford DPhil Transfer Status report.   

For her DPhil thesis research, Demi is examining the cooperative firing dynamics of the distinct populations of hippocampal interneurons using in vivo electrophysiological ensemble recordings in freely behaving mice. In this work, Demi combines analyses of the local field potentials and neuronal spike trains with input-defined and cell-type-selective optogenetic manipulations during spatial exploration and memory tasks. This work is intended to characterise the division of labour amongst the various types of hippocampal interneurons for the internal processing of mnemonic information. Demi's D.Phil. research is conducted in close collaboration with Dr Vitor Lopes-dos-Santos, in the Unit research group led by Prof. David Dupret.