Biosketch and Research Interests
Jennifer Ayala is a graduate student, who joined the Conn Laboratory in May, 2004.  Her research interests include metabotropic glutamate receptor regulation of synaptic transmission in the hippocampus, specifically at the Schaffer collateral – CA1 (SC-CA1) synapse.  During the beginning of her graduate career she focused on acute regulation of synaptic transmission and combined extracellular field recordings and novel subtype selective ligands to determine the group III mGluRs responsible for reducing synaptic transmission at the SC-CA1 synapse.  Importantly, she showed that there is a developmental switch in the group III mGluR that plays this role from mGluR8 in neonates to mGluR7 in adult animals.  Her work is now focused on how the group I receptor, mGluR5, functions to regulate long term changes in synaptic strength, such as long term potentiation (LTP) and long term depression (LTD) at the SC-CA1 synapse.  She and another graduate student in the lab, Yelin Chen, have been able to show that selective enhancement of mGluR5 with positive allosteric modulators (PAMs) during trains of synaptic stimulation can potentiate both LTP and LTD at this synapse.  Her work continues to be focused synaptic transmission at this synapse and she will begin to look at the effects of PAMs in mouse models of fragile X syndrome using both electrophysiology and behavioral techniques.    

Selected Publications
J.K. Shirey, Z. Xiang, D. Orton, A.E. Brady, K.A. Johnson, R. Williams, J.E. Ayala, A.L. Rodriguez, J. Wess, C.D. Weaver, C.M. Niswender, and P.J. Conn.  An allosteric potentiator of M4 mAChR modulates hippocampal synaptic transmission.  Nature Chemical Biology.  4, 42-50 (2007).

C.M. Niswender, K.A. Johnson, Q.Luo, J.E. Ayala, C. Kim, P.J. Conn, and C.D. Weaver.  (2008)  A novel assay of Gi/o-linked G protein coupled receptor coupling to potassium channels provides new insights into the pharmacology of the group III metabotropic glutamate receptors.  Mol Pharmacol.  Epub doi: 10.1124/mol.107.041053.  

J.E. Ayala, Q. Luo, C.M. Niswender, J.L. Banko, P.J. Conn.  Group III mGluR regulation of synaptic
transmission at the SC-CA1 synapse is developmentally regulated.  Neuropharmacology.  Epub doi: 10.1016/j.neuropharm.2007.12.009