Daniela Schwindel


Phone: (403) 394-3937
e-mail: daniela.schwindel@uleth.ca

Daniela Schwindel completed her M.Sc. in Neurobiology at the Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany and conducted the research for her Master's Thesis in Norway at the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience and Centre for the Biology of Memory under the supervision of Dr. Stefan Leutgeb. She investigated hippocampal population coding to distinguish separate spatial memories. Daniela joined Dr. McNaughton's laboratory as a PhD student in July 2009. Currently, Daniela is investigating the dynamics of rate remapping in CA3, a form of coding different external sensory input occurring in the same place with different firing rates. By testing whether these rate differences in CA3 are reactivated in sleep after behaviour, she is trying to understand whether sensory information is linked to the spatial code directly between synapses within the CA3 recurrent network or whether CA3 is mainly driven by spatial input from medial entorhinal cortex and the rate differences are expressed only due to current external sensory input during behaviour.

Posters and Publications

  1. Navratilova Z, Hoang LT, Schwindel CD, Tatsuno M and McNaughton BL (2012). Experience-dependent firing rate remapping generates directional selectivity in hippocampal place cells. Front. Neural Circuits 6:6. doi: 10.3389/fncir.2012.00006
  2. Schwindel, C.D., Koenig, J., & Leutgeb, S. (2009). Pattern separation in hippocampal CA1 and CA3 cell populations in spatial memory tasks. Society for Neuroscience (SFN) 2009, Chicago, IL, U.S.A.
  3. Schwindel, C.D., Tatsuno, M., & McNaughton, B.L. (2010). Monosynaptic interactions between excitatory neurons in medial prefrontal cortex. Society for Neuroscience (SFN) 2010, San Diego, CA, U.S.A.
  4. Schwindel, C.D., and McNaughton, B.L. (2010). Hippocampal-cortical Interactions and the Dynamics of Memory Trace Reactivation. Progress in Brain Research vol.192, Slow Brain Oscillations of Sleep, Resting State and Vigilance. ( Van Someren, E. J.W., Van der Werf, Y.D., Roelfsema, P.R., Mansvelder, H., Lopes da Silva, F., Eds.). Elsevier: London. IN PRESS.