Maximiliano Jose Nigro

About

My interest in neuronal diversity stems from my passion for biodiversity and evolution. Indeed, I apply to neuroscience the same approach as to birdwatching: I look at the morphology of neurons, their behaviour (firing pattern), and the environment they live in (the cortical circuits). During my doctoral studies with Dr. Jacopo Magistretti at the University of Pavia (Italy) I studied the expression of subthreshold sodium currents in different cortical neurons. I then focused on stellate cells of the entorhinal cortex during my postdoctoral work with Dr. Johan Storm at the University of Oslo, where I studied the diversity of potassium channels the shape the behaviour of these neurons.

In order to tackle the challenge of studying cortical circuits I moved to the USA to work with Dr. Bernardo Rudy at NYU. There I used in vitro physiology, intersectional genetics and cellular morphology to dissect the diversity of GABAergic neurons and describe their connectivity. Upon returning to Europe, I joined Dr. Menno Witter at the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience to work on multisensory integration in perirhinal cortex and the diversity of its inhibitory neurons.

My project RhinalMultiSense aims at describing the circuits for multisensory integration in perirhinal cortex. For this project I received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innnovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 885955.

Future research

The cerebral cortex is the seat of cognitive processes and its laminar structure has fascinated scientists ever since Ramon y Cajal described its cellular components as “butterflies of the soul”. That nickname encloses the importance of the knowledge of the diversity of neuron types in the cortex to understand its functions. The cortex combines information from different senses to produce adequate responses, a process called multisensory integration. In the cortex, multisensory integration has a profound impact on cognitive functions such as sensory perception, memory and decision making. The perirhinal cortex is a high order area where all sensory modalities converge, it relays this information to the entorhinal cortex, and it sends feedback projections to sensory areas of the cortex. The perirhinal cortex is involved in object recognition and memory by integrating sensory features of objects. We will investigate how multisensory integration occurs at the cellular and network level in the mouse perirhinal cortex and how it contributes to perception, object exploration and memory.

Publications:

Google Scholar

My NCBI

Publications

2022

Nigro, Maximiliano Jose; Kjelsberg, Kasper; Convertino, Laura; Nair, Rajeevkumar Raveendran; Witter, Menno. (2022) Enrichment of specific GABAergic neuronal types in the mouse perirhinal cortex. bioRxiv.
Academic article

2021

Nigro, Maximiliano Jose; Kirikae, Hinaco; Kjelsberg, Kasper; Nair Raveendran, Rajeevkumar; Witter, Menno P.. (2021) Not All That Is Gold Glitters: PV-IRES-Cre Mouse Line Shows Low Efficiency of Labeling of Parvalbumin Interneurons in the Perirhinal Cortex. Frontiers in Neural Circuits. volum 15.
Academic article
Nigro, Maximiliano Jose; Kirikae, Hinako; Kjelsberg, Kasper; Raveendran Nair, Rajeevkumar; Witter, Menno. (2021) Not all that is gold glitters: PV-IRES-Cre mouse line shows low efficiency of labeling of parvalbumin interneurons in the perirhinal cortex. BioRxiv.
Academic article
Ohara, Shinya; Blankvoort, Stefan; Nair Raveendran, Rajeevkumar; Nigro, Maximiliano Jose; Nilssen, Eirik Stamland; Kentros, Clifford; Witter, Menno. (2021) Local projections of layer Vb-to-Va are more prominent in lateral than in medial entorhinal cortex. eLIFE.
Academic article
Quattrocolo, Giulia; Dunville, Keagan; Nigro, Maximiliano Jose. (2021) Resurgent Sodium Current in Neurons of the Cerebral Cortex. Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience. volum 15.
Academic article

Journal publications

Nigro, Maximiliano Jose; Kjelsberg, Kasper; Convertino, Laura; Nair, Rajeevkumar Raveendran; Witter, Menno. (2022) Enrichment of specific GABAergic neuronal types in the mouse perirhinal cortex. bioRxiv.
Academic article
Nigro, Maximiliano Jose; Kirikae, Hinaco; Kjelsberg, Kasper; Nair Raveendran, Rajeevkumar; Witter, Menno P.. (2021) Not All That Is Gold Glitters: PV-IRES-Cre Mouse Line Shows Low Efficiency of Labeling of Parvalbumin Interneurons in the Perirhinal Cortex. Frontiers in Neural Circuits. volum 15.
Academic article
Nigro, Maximiliano Jose; Kirikae, Hinako; Kjelsberg, Kasper; Raveendran Nair, Rajeevkumar; Witter, Menno. (2021) Not all that is gold glitters: PV-IRES-Cre mouse line shows low efficiency of labeling of parvalbumin interneurons in the perirhinal cortex. BioRxiv.
Academic article
Ohara, Shinya; Blankvoort, Stefan; Nair Raveendran, Rajeevkumar; Nigro, Maximiliano Jose; Nilssen, Eirik Stamland; Kentros, Clifford; Witter, Menno. (2021) Local projections of layer Vb-to-Va are more prominent in lateral than in medial entorhinal cortex. eLIFE.
Academic article
Quattrocolo, Giulia; Dunville, Keagan; Nigro, Maximiliano Jose. (2021) Resurgent Sodium Current in Neurons of the Cerebral Cortex. Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience. volum 15.
Academic article
Nigro, Maximiliano Jose. (2020) Sense and Action across the Layers of the Rat Posterior Parietal Cortex. Journal of Neuroscience.
Academic article
Nilssen, Eirik Stamland; Doan, Thanh Pierre; Nigro, Maximiliano Jose; Ohara, Shinya; Witter, Menno. (2019) Neurons and networks in the entorhinal cortex: A reappraisal of the lateral and medial entorhinal subdivisions mediating parallel cortical pathways. Hippocampus.
Academic literature review
Hönigsperger, Christoph; Nigro, Maximiliano José; Storm, Johan Frederik. (2017) Physiological roles of Kv2 channels in entorhinal cortex layer II stellate cells revealed by Guangxitoxin-1E. Journal of Physiology. volum 595 (3).
Academic article
Nigro, Maximiliano José; Mateos-Aparicio, Pedro; Storm, Johan Frederik. (2014) Expression and functional roles of Kv7/KCNQ/M-channels in rat medial entorhinal cortex layer II stellate cells. Journal of Neuroscience. volum 34 (20).
Academic article

Teaching

Courses

NEVR3001 - Cellular and Systems Neuroscience

Media

2016

Poster

Murphy, Ricardo; Hönigsperger, Christoph; Nigro, Maximiliano Jose; Storm, Johan Frederik. (2016) Patch clamp and modeling suggest that Kv2 channels are an important determinant of firing patterns in layer II stellate cells of the medial entorhinal cortex. Federation of European Neuroscience Societies Forum ; Copenhagen. 2016-07-02 - 2016-07-06.

2013

Poster

Hönigsperger, Christoph; Nigro, Maximiliano José; Storm, Johan Frederik. (2013) Physiological roles of Kv2 channels in entorhinal cortex layer II cells revealed by Guangxitoxin-1E. Neuroscience 2013 . Society for Neuroscience; San Diego. 2013-11-09 - 2013-11-13.

Språkvelger

Maximiliano Jose Nigro