Alejandra Alonso
PhD student
ale.alonso.06@gmail.com
I am a biochemist from Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile. During my bachelor’s degree I did a short internship in neuroanatomy and later a longer internship in neurophysiology with Pablo Fuentealba, performing optogenetics and neurophysiological recordings on mice, alongside behavioural tests. From that I wrote my thesis and also published a paper about the role of somatostatin cells in the basal forebrain and their effect on cortical dynamics. The next step in my education is a PhD under the guidance of Prof. Genzel, funded by M-GATE project, where I plan on working with Calcium Imaging and electrophysiological recordings.
Publications from the lab:
I Navarro-Lobato, A Aleman-Zapata, A Samanta, Mi Bogers, S Narayanan, A Rayan, A Alonso, J van der Meij, M Khamassi, Z Khan, L Genzel, (2023) Learning Fast and Slow: Increased cortical plasticity leads to memory interference and enhanced hippocampal-cortical interactions Elife (bioRxiv doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.11.21.517356)
Alonso, A., Samanta, A., van der Meij, J., van den Brand, L., Negwer, M., Navarro Lobato, I., & Genzel, L. (2023). Defensive and offensive behaviours in a Kleefstra syndrome mouse model. Animal Cognition. doi:10.1007/s10071-023-01757-2
Samanta, A., Aleman-Zapata, A., Agarwal, K., Özsezer, P., Alonso, A., van der Meij, J., Rayan, A., Navarro-Lobato, I., & Genzel, L. (2023). CBD lengthens sleep, shortens ripples and leads to intact simple but worse cumulative memory. iScience bioRxiv, doi:10.1101/2023.02.28.530388
Vallianatou, C.-A., A. Alonso, A. Aleman, L. Genzel and F. Stella (2021). "Schema-induced shifts in mice navigational strategies are unveiled by a minimal behavioral model of spatial exploration." eNeuro (bioRxiv: 2020.2012.2021.423808).
Alonso A, Bokeria L, van der Meij J, Samanta A, Eichler R, Spooner P, Navarro Lobato I, Genzel L (2021) The HexMaze: A previous knowledge and schema task for mice eNeuro (bioRxiv 441048)
A Alonso, L Genzel, A Gomez (2021) “Sex and Menstrual Phase Influences on Sleep and Memory” Current Sleep Medicine Reports, 1-14
Alonso A., van der Meij J., Tse D. & Genzel L. (2020) Naïve to expert: Considering the role of previous knowledge in memory Brain and Neuroscience Advances https://doi.org/10.1177/2398212820948686
Samanta A, Alonso A, Genzel L (2020) Memory reactivations and consolidation: considering neuromodulators across wake and sleep Current Opinion in Physiology 15, 120-7
Schut, Alonso, Smits, Khamassi, Samanta, Negwer, Kasri, Navarro Lobato, Genzel (2020) The Object Space Task reveals a dissociation between semantic-like and simple memory in a mouse model of Kleefstra Syndrome bioRxiv, 781054 Neurobiol Learn Mem. 173, 107265 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2020.107265