Lia Forti received her PhD in Biophysics studying the biophysical properties of calcium channels in cultured cerebellar granule cells, using patch-clamp (Neuron, 1993, 10: 437-450; J Neurosci, 1994, 14: 5243-5256).
She was later involved in the study of the quantal properties of synaptic transmission in cultured hippocampal synapses, measuring individual quanta for the first time at CNS synapses (Nature, 1997, 388:874-878).
She studied for many years topics in cerebellar phisiology, focusing on molecular layer interneurons (J Physiol, 2000, 527:33-48) and on Golgi interneuron excitability and synaptic contacts (J Physiol, 2006, 574:711-729; J Neurosci, 2013, 33:12430-46), using patch-clamp and Ca2+ fluorescence imaging.
She has an ongoing collaboration with prof. D. Pietrobon for studying properties of up- and down-states in thalamocortical brain slices from a migraine mouse model; a collaboration with Prof. F. Valtorta, prof. R. Fesce, Dr. L. Muzio for studying up- and down-states in an epileptic mouse model was started in recent years. For these studies, multielectrode array (MEA) recordings are used.
Lia Forti is at present involved in a project for studying the effects of acute stress on excitatory synaptic transmission in the prefrontal cortex, in collaboration with prof. M. Popoli (Univ. degli Studi di Milano) and co-workers.
