Welcome to the Program in Memory Longevity in the O’Donnell Brain Institute at UT Southwestern

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‍ ‍New in Science: Dendrites as independent computational units‍‍ ‍

The lab's latest research on dendritic computation is out in Science. Asako Noguchi, Satoshi Terada, and colleagues show that dendrites don't merely relay signals to the cell body — they carry out their own independent computations, retaining memories of past reward locations, anticipating new spatial patterns, and replaying activity during rest. A paradigm shift in how we think about learning and memory at the single-neuron level.‍ Read the paper →

Read the cover story in Scientific American →

‍We're hiring. The PML is recruiting a tenure-track faculty member and a postdoctoral fellow.

See open positions →

The PML at UT Southwestern's Peter O'Donnell Jr. Brain Institute studies how memories are formed, stored and lost. We work across scales, from dendritic spines and single synapses to hippocampal circuits during behavior and brain states. Our aim is to understand how memory forms and fails in aging and disease.

We are a young, growing program with a shared infrastructure that few places offer. It includes multiple in vivo two-photon systems (Femtonics Atlas, Bruker Ultima with SLM-based holographic stimulation), multipatch electrophysiology, and access to human hippocampal tissue through neurosurgical collaborations. We build tools as much as we use them, and new members help shape both the science and the program.

Check out the Opportunities section for the application details.

About Us

The Losonczy Lab is now part of the O’Donnell Brain Institute at UT Southwestern Medical Center, where Professor Attila Losonczy directs the newly established Program in Memory Longevity.

Take a deeper dive into Program

  • Our research investigates the neural dynamics underlying learning and memory in the mouse hippocampus as a model system. In addition to uncovering fundamental circuit-level mechanisms, we are particularly interested in how these processes are shaped by aging and how they contribute to memory resilience across the lifespan. By combining cutting-edge imaging, electrophysiology, and behavioral approaches, we aim to advance understanding of memory function and its vulnerabilities.

  • We have extensive publications about our research available.

  • We are actively recruiting at multiple levels — from research technicians to postdoctoral fellows. In addition, the Program on Memory Longevity has faculty openings at the Assistant Professor level.

Research Areas

  • Neurons and Circuits

    By identifying and manipulating groups of neurons that work together during learning, we can selectively amplify individual memory traces, revealing how coordinated neural activity gives rise to stable memories.

  • Synapses

    By watching how synaptic connections between neurons change and how synaptic activity is transformed into electrical and biochemical signals in individual neurons in the living brain during learning, we can shed light on the rules of neural plasticity underlying memory formation and storage.

  • Memory Inception

    By using a non-invasive approach, we can implant lasting memory traces into the intact brain, demonstrating that artificial activation of specific neural patterns can create stable, behaviorally relevant memories.

  • Genes and Molecules

    By using novel labeling technologies in the lab, we can permanently mark neurons participating in learning to uncover their genetic and molecular signatures for the first time. These approaches allow us to link functional neural activity with molecular profiles at unprecedented resolution.

  • Computation and Theory

    This branch of the Program in Memory Longevity (PML) bridges experimental discoveries with mathematical frameworks that explain how memories are encoded, stabilized, and lost within complex neural networks.