Ximena Opitz-Araya

This study evaluates three pan-inhibitory viral constructs in macaques to assess their efficacy in targeting inhibitory neurons and modulating neural activity.

This study shows that cell type-specific AADC expression in Parkinson's disease models reduces motor deficits and dyskinesia more effectively than broad targeting.

The paper develops a cross-species enhancer-AAV toolkit for targeting specific cell types in the basal ganglia across species, validated in mouse and macaque.

The paper analyzes multi-modal Patch-seq data from macaque striatum to reveal morphoelectric diversity and functional specialization of neuronal cell types, highlighting primate-specific features and differences from rodents.

The paper examines HCN-channel properties in primate supragranular pyramidal neurons, finding conserved traits across species with some divergence in magnitude between humans and macaques.

The paper presents an enhancer AAV toolbox for targeting and perturbing striatal cell types and circuits in mice, with validated specificity and cross-species applicability.

The paper develops a toolkit of transgenic mouse lines and enhancer AAVs for selective targeting of cortical cell populations using transcriptomic and epigenomic data.

This paper develops a system to simultaneously record and manipulate mesoscopic cortical activity in awake mice, enabling study of its effects on behavior and subcortical activity.

The paper uses viral labeling and Patch-seq to define morpho-electric properties of GABAergic interneurons in human neocortex, revealing functional insights and reclassifying some SST neurons into PVALB subclass.

The paper develops AAV-based genetic tools to specifically target astrocytes and oligodendrocytes across species, revealing functional roles in reward-dependent acetylcholine responses.

The paper identifies enhancer elements that drive subclass-specific gene expression in neocortex across mouse, primate, and human species using comparative epigenetics and AAV-based functional assays.