Kristen Harris

Kristen Harris is Professor of Neuroscience and Fellow in the Center for Learning and Memory at the University of Texas at Austin. For more than two decades, her laboratory has pursued understanding of structural synaptic plasticity in the developing and mature nervous system. They have been among the first to develop computer-assisted approaches to analyze synapses in three-dimensions through serial section electron microscopy (3DEM) under a variety of experimental and natural conditions. This powerful set of techniques has led to new understanding of synaptic structure under normal conditions as well as in response to experimental conditions such as long-term potentiation, a cellular mechanism of learning and memory. The body of work includes novel information about how subcellular components are redistributed specifically to those synapses that are undergoing plasticity during learning and memory, brain development, and pathological conditions including epilepsy.