Valerie Lapointe

Biography

Valérie Lapointe grew up in Quebec. She came to Lethbridge in the summer of 1997 with the Provincial Summer Student Exchange. She worked at the Lethbridge Research Center during and after completing her B.Sc. in Biology. She went to Montreal to pursue a M.Sc. in Neuroscience with Dr. Jean-Claude Lacaille. There she studied the plasticity of the interneuron of the hippocampus. She returned to Lethbridge in 2003 and has been working at the University of Lethbridge in Biology and Neuroscience. Valérie worked briefly with Dr. Alice Hontela studying ecotoxicology and Dr. Robert Sutherland studying neurogenesis in the rat hippocampus. From 2005 to 2008 she worked for Dr. Glen Prusky studying the mice and rat visual systems. She then worked for Dr. Albert Cross studying the effect of Manganese (an MRI contrast agent) on rat’s behavior. She is currently working for Dr. Bruce McNaughton and is involved with in situ hybridization of immediate early genes.

Education

  • 2002 - M.Sc. (Neuroscience), Université de Montréal.
  • 1999 - B.Sc. in Biological Sciences, opt. Animal Physiology, Université de Montréal.

Recent Publications

  1. James Cardiff, Mariam Alaverdashwili, Valerie Lapointe, Ian Q Whishaw and Albert R. Cross. Does Manganese Effect Single Pellet Reaching in Rats? MEMRI and its effect on Behavior. 2008, BME conference.
  2. Perez, Y., Ratte, S., Sanon, N., Lapointe, V., & Lacaille, J.C. Cell type-specific changes in spontaneous and minimally evoked excitatory synaptic activity in hippocampal CA1 interneurons of kainate-treated rats. Epilepsy Res. 2006 Mar 68(3): 241-54.
  3. Lapointe, V., Morin, F., Ratte, S., Croce, A., Conquet, F., & Lacaille, J.C. Synapse-specific mGluR1-dependent long-term potentiation in interneurones regulates mouse hippocampal inhibition. J Physiol. 2004 Feb 15;555(Pt 1):125-35.
  4. Lapointe, V., Morin, F., & Lacaille, J.C. Mechanisms and synapse specificity of mGluR1-dependent LTP at excitatory synapses of CA1 interneurons in mouse hippocampus. Society for Neuroscience 2002 Abstract.
  5. Lapointe, V., & Lacaille, J.C. Specificity synaptique et rôle des mGluRs dans la potentialisation à long-terme des interneurones de l’hippocampe. AGESFM Conférence 2002 Abstract.