Alan Jung Park
/ Assistant professor
Alan Park / Advancing neuroPhysiology Laboratory
TEL +82-2-740-8566
FAX 02-763-9667
E-MAIL jung.park@snu.ac.kr
WEBSITE https://www.apneuro.snu.ac.kr/
Research
Research Field
What makes us human?Higher-order cognitive function makes humans prominent among other creatures. We establish internal representations of everyday experience. In daily life, we continuously receive information about the external world and incorporate it into the previously established internal representations. This process requires continuous acquisition and updating of information. This high-level cognitive function, namely cognitive flexibility, enables us to rapidly adapt to changing environments, an ability critical for survival. Notably, cognitive flexibility is declined in many neuropsychiatric disorders (i.e. schizophrenia, autism), aging, and sleep disorders.
We study molecular-, genetic-, and brain circuit-level mechanisms of cognitive flexibility with the goal to treat cognitive dysfunctions associated with neuropsychiatric disorders, aging, and sleep disorders.
Keyword
Neuroscience, Electrophysiology, Computational decodingIntensive Major
Publication
- Park, A.J.*, Harris, A.Z., Martyniuk, K.M., Chang, C., Abbas, A.I., Lowes, D.C., Kellendonk, C., Gogos, J.A., Gordon, J.A.*, 2021. Reset of hippocampal – prefrontal circuitry facilitates learning. Nature 591, 615–619. * Corresponding author. - Recommended by F1000.
- Park, A.J., 2023. Novelty selectively permits learning-associated plasticity in ventral tegmental-hippocampal-prefrontal circuitry. Front Behav Neurosci. 9;16:1091082.
- Park, A.J.*, Shetty, M.S., Baraban, J.M., and Abel, T.*, 2020. Selective role of the translin/trax RNase complex in hippocampal synaptic plasticity. Mol. Brain 13, 145. * Corresponding author.
- Park, A.J., Havekes, R., Fu, X., Hansen, R., Tudor, J.C., Peixoto, L., Li, Z., Wu, Y.-C., Poplawski, S.G., Baraban, J.M., Abel, T., 2017. Learning induces the translin/trax RNase complex to express activin receptors for persistent memory. eLife 6. - Recommended by F1000.
- Park, A.J., Havekes, R., Choi, J.H., Luczak, V., Nie, T., Huang, T., Abel, T., 2014. A presynaptic role for PKA in synaptic tagging and memory. Neurobiol. Learn. Mem. 114, 101–112. -"This is a departure from commonly applied roles for this enzyme in learning and/or in hippocampal plasticity mechanisms, which are largely postsynaptic. The point certainly deserves further investigation." (Myskiw et al. 2017).
