Dr James Ainge

Senior Lecturer

Researcher profile

Phone

+44 (0)1334 462057

Email

jaa7@st-andrews.ac.uk

Research areas

The focus of the lab is to try and understand the neural mechanisms that support our ability to remember the things that have happened to us ? episodic memory. Most of our work takes a systems neuroscience approach to examine how networks within the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex process memory information.  We use in vivo electrophysiology to examine firing patterns of individual neurons as lab rats carry out memory tasks. We also use molecular and genetic tools to manipulate the network and understand the cellular mechanisms underlying episodic memory.

Complimenting the neuroscientific approach, other lines of research in the lab examine the cognitive mechanisms underlying episodic memory in both human adults and children. Ultimately, we aim to apply this work by using our knowledge of mammalian memory networks to help test therapeutic strategies for disorders of memory such as Alzheimer?s disease.

PhD supervision

• Silvia Ventura
• Veronika Ambrozova
• Stephen Duncan

Selected publications

• Hippocampal place cells encode intended destination, and not a discriminative stimulus, in a conditional T-maze task

  Ainge, J. A., Tamosiunaite, M., Woergoetter, F. & Dudchenko, P. A., Mar 2012, In : Hippocampus. 22, 3, p. 534-543 10 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article

• Ontogeny of neural circuits underlying spatial memory in the rat

  Ainge, J. A. & Langston, R. F., 1 Mar 2012, In : Frontiers in Neural Circuits. 6, 10 p., 8.

  Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article

• Development of the Spatial Representation System in the Rat

  Langston, R. F., Ainge, J. A., Couey, J. J., Canto, C. B., Bjerknes, T. L., Witter, M. P., Moser, E. I. & Moser, M-B., 18 Jun 2010, In : Science. 328, 5985, p. 1576-1580 5 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article

• Hippocampal CA1 place cells encode intended destination on a maze with multiple choice points

  Ainge, J. A., Tamosiunaite, M., Woergoetter, F. & Dudchenko, P. A., 5 Sep 2007, In : The Journal of Neuroscience. 27, 36, p. 9769-9779 11 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article

• Exploring the role of context-dependent hippocampal activity in spatial alternation behavior

  Ainge, J. A., van der Meer, M. A. A., Langston, R. F. & Wood, E. R., 2007, In : Hippocampus. 17, 10, p. 988-1002 15 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article

See more publications