John P. Welsh, PhD

Children's Title: Prinicipal Investigator

Academic Title: Professor, Department of Neurology, University of Washington School of Medicine

Research Center: Center for Integrative Brain Research

"When I was a kid, I was fascinated by animal behavior—by questions such as why does that dog do what it does, or why does one squirrel chase another squirrel? I realized there has to be something internal to the animal that determines, with millisecond precision, what it's going to be doing at a particular moment. As I grew up, I kept getting more interested in how the brain generates behavior, in the neurological processes underlying thinking and action and in trying to apply those insights to medical issues and neurological disorders."

  • Publications

    Other Publications

    • Bonomo J, Welsh JP, Manthiram K, Swartz JR
      Comparing the functional properties of the Hsp70 chaperones, DnaK and BiP.
      20435400 Biophysical chemistry, 2010 June : 58-66
    • Welsh JP, Patel KG, Manthiram K, Swartz JR
      Multiply mutated Gaussia luciferases provide prolonged and intense bioluminescence.
      19825431 Biochemical and biophysical research communications, 2009 Nov. 27 : 563-8
    • Placantonakis DG, Bukovsky AA, Aicher SA, Kiem HP, Welsh JP
      Continuous electrical oscillations emerge from a coupled network: a study of the inferior olive using lentiviral knockdown of connexin36.
      16687492 The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2006 May 10 : 5008-16
    • Welsh JP, Yamaguchi H, Zeng XH, Kojo M, Nakada Y, Takagi A, Sugimori M, Llinás RR
      Normal motor learning during pharmacological prevention of Purkinje cell long-term depression.
      16278298 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2005 Nov. 22 : 17166-71
    • Welsh JP, Ahn ES, Placantonakis DG
      Is autism due to brain desynchronization?
      15749250 International journal of developmental neuroscience : the official journal of the International Society for Developmental Neuroscience, 2005 April : 253-63
    • Placantonakis DG, Bukovsky AA, Zeng XH, Kiem HP, Welsh JP
      Fundamental role of inferior olive connexin 36 in muscle coherence during tremor.
      15103021 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2004 May 4 : 7164-9
    • Johnson JL, Welsh JP
      Independently movable multielectrode array to record multiple fast-spiking neurons in the cerebral cortex during cognition.
      12695104 Methods (San Diego, Calif.), 2003 May : 64-78
    • Welsh JP
      Functional significance of climbing-fiber synchrony: a population coding and behavioral analysis.
      12582053 Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2002 Dec. : 188-204
    • Placantonakis D, Cicirata F, Welsh JP
      A dominant negative mutation of neuronal connexin 36 that blocks intercellular permeability.
      11834292 Brain research. Molecular brain research, 2002 Jan. 31 : 15-28
    • Welsh JP, Yuen G, Placantonakis DG, Vu TQ, Haiss F, O'Hearn E, Molliver ME, Aicher SA
      Why do Purkinje cells die so easily after global brain ischemia? Aldolase C, EAAT4, and the cerebellar contribution to posthypoxic myoclonus.
      11968459 Advances in neurology, 2002 : 331-59
    • Welsh JP, Placantonakis DG, Warsetsky SI, Marquez RG, Bernstein L, Aicher SA
      The serotonin hypothesis of myoclonus from the perspective of neuronal rhythmicity.
      11968457 Advances in neurology, 2002 : 307-29
    • Llinás R, Lang EJ, Welsh JP, Makarenko VI
      A New Approach to the Analysis of Multidimensional Neuronal Activity: Markov Random Fields.
      12662870 Neural networks : the official journal of the International Neural Network Society, 1997 July : 785-789

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Overview

Research Description

My research seeks to understand brain function in both health and disease and spans SIDS and autism. In SIDS, my team is investigating the molecular basis of neurotransmitter receptor changes in the brainstem after bouts of brain hypoxia and their relation to the hyperexcitability and neuronal death upon recovery to normoxia. For Autism, my team is describing the electrophysiological signatures of neocortical activity that permit rapid temporal processing of sound sequences and how their disruption in autism may serve as an electrophysiological phenotype for delayed language development. Our studies are based within the laboratory but also reach out to collaborators in clinical and preclinical settings around the country. Our experiments are inherently multidisciplinary and involve behavioral conditioning, in vivo multiple microelectrode neurophysiology in behaving animals, gene transfer using retroviral-based vectors, in vitro electrophysiology, and real-time optical imaging of neuronal circuits.

Research Focus Area

Neuroscience / Neurodevelopment