Zooming in on the brain: Developing new tools to study how our brains are wired
By Joyce Dall'Acqua Peterson

Erik Bloss develops high-resolution tools to study the wiring of neuronal circuits in normal brains and Alzheimer’s disease.
“Neurons are super-interesting electrical devices,” says Erik Bloss, Ph.D.The Bloss Lab uses various genetic, structural and functional approaches to understand how synaptic connectivity among cortical cell types underlies behaviorally-relevant neural computations.neuroscientist Erik Bloss, Ph.D. “And visualizing them helps you figure out the functions they serve.”
Bloss has joined faculty at The Jackson Laboratory (JAX) headquarters in Bar Harbor, Maine, as an assistant professor. He researches the wiring of neuronal circuits in the hippocampus — a brain structure that is essential to learning and memory, and that is vulnerable to the ravages of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
Bloss brings with him high-resolution instruments that he used to develop pioneering techniques for imaging neurons as a research scientist in the laboratory of Nelson Spruston at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus in Ashburn, Va. “This technology allows me to actually see the organization of how two neuron types connect to each other,” he says.