Dr. Etay Hay is an Independent Scientist at the Krembil Centre for Neuroinformatics at CAMH. He is also an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto.
Areas of Research
Dr. Hay’s research uses computational models of cortical circuits to study the cellular and circuit mechanisms of cortical processing in health and disease. Brain function is mediated by the interplay between finely-tuned circuit connectivity and versatile cellular mechanisms with which neurons are endowed. Similarly, there is increasing evidence that brain disorders involve malfunction at the intersection of cellular and circuit mechanisms. Dr. Hay’s research integrates unique human data to develop a computational platform to advance our understanding of cellular and circuit mechanisms of brain disorders, improve the ability to diagnose using brain recordings, and facilitate the translation of candidate therapeutics by testing in silico their effects on cortical circuits.
Hay lab is currently studying inhibition in cortical circuits in depression. In particular, we study the inhibitory synaptic connections between dendritic-targeting (somatostatin) interneurons and pyramidal neurons. We develop models of human cortical circuits by capitalizing on unique data from CAMH and Toronto Western Hospital, and study how reduced inhibition affects cortical processing and oscillatory activity between cortical layers. In turn, we simulate electrode probes to characterize the signatures of the cellular effects in clinically-relevant neural signals, e.g. local field potentials and electroencephalography. In addition, we use our computational platform to test in silico the effects of candidate pharmacology for depression developed at CAMH on human and rodent model circuits.
For more information view Dr. Hay’s lab website (www.haybrainlab.com)
Publications