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Solange P. Brown

Solange P. Brown, MD, PhD

Johns Hopkins Affiliations:
  • Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Faculty

Languages

  • English

Gender

Female

About Solange P. Brown

Primary Academic Title

Associate Professor of Neuroscience

Background

Dr. Solange P. Brown is an associate professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a member of the Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute at Johns Hopkins.

Her research examines the functional organization of local and long-range circuits of the neocortex and the neocortex's interactions with subcortical structures including the thalamus and claustrum. She also uses mouse models to examine the roles of particular cortical cell types in neuropsychiatric diseases like schizophrenia and neurodegenerative diseases like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD).

Dr. Brown has authored or co-authored a number of  peer-reviewed publications and has presented her work at conferences around the world. In 2013, she received a Young Investigator Award from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (formerly known as the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression). In 2014, she was awarded a Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship Award.

Research Interests

ALS, Functional organization of local circuits of the neocortex

Lab Website

Brown Lab - Lab Website

  • The neocortex represents a massively interconnected network of neurons that generates a broad repertoire of behaviors including perception, action and decision-making. Most synaptic inputs onto neocortical neurons come from other neocortical neurons. In addition, neocortical neurons interact with a wide variety of other brain areas including the thalamus and the claustrum. Dr. Brown’s laboratory examines how these circuits integrate incoming information and generate the cortical outputs that govern perception, thought and action.

    The lab’s strategy is to combine physiological approaches with anatomical and genetic techniques for identifying cell populations and pathways to define the synaptic interactions among different classes of cortical neurons and to understand how long-range feedforward and feedback inputs are integrated within these circuits. By identifying the synaptic partners of functionally identified output neurons of the cortex and characterizing the dynamic properties of their synaptic connections, the lab can begin to understand the computations taking place within the cortex. The long-term goal is to understand how cortical circuits give rise to cortical activity and ultimately generate perception and behavior.

Research Summary

Dr. Brown’s research aims to understand the functional organization of the mammalian neocortex in the healthy brain and the alterations in circuit properties that underlie neurologic and psychiatric disease. The basic structure of the cortex is similar across functional areas, yet different classes of cortical projection neurons, the major cell type in the cortex, are specialized to send distinct messages out of the cortex to target brain regions. Using a bottom-up approach, her lab is determining how these different messages are generated, what they mean in brain processing, and how abnormalities in these processes contribute to neurologic and psychiatric diseases.

Selected Publications

  • Brown SP, Hestrin S. Intracortical circuits of pyramidal neurons reflect their long-range axonal targets. Nature. 2009. 457:1133-1136

  • Chevée M, Finkel EA, Kim S-J, O’Connor DH, Brown SP. Neural activity in the mouse claustrum in a cross-modal sensory selection task. Neuron. 2022. 110:486-501.E7. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2021.11.013

  • Chevée M, Robertson JD, Cannon GH, Brown SP, Goff LA. Variation in neuronal activity state, axonal projection target and position principally define the transcriptional identity of individual neocortical projection neurons. Cell Reports. 2018. 22:441-455. doi:10.1016/jcelrep.2017.12.046

  • Frandolig JE, Matney CJ, Lee K, Kim J, Chevée M, Kim S-J, Bickert AA, Brown SP. The synaptic organization of layer 6 circuits reveals inhibition as a major output of a neocortical sublamina. Cell Reports. 2019. 28:3131-3143. doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2019.08.048

  • Liu K, Kim J, Kim DW, Zhang YS, Bao H, Denaxa M, Lim SA, Kim E, Liu C, Wickersham IR, Pachnis V, Hattar S, Song J, Brown SP, Blackshaw S. Lhx6-positive GABA-releasing neurons of the zona incerta promote sleep. Nature. 2017. 548:582-587. doi: 10.1038/nature23663

Graduate Program Affiliations

  • Neuroscience Graduate Program

    Biochemistry, Cellular and Molecular Biology (BCMB) Graduate Program

    Cellular and Molecular Medicine Program

    XDBio Graduate Training Program

     

Expertise

Education

Harvard University

Ph.D., 2001

Harvard Medical School - Boston

M.D., 2001

Princeton University

A.B., 1990