Personal Biography
I grew up in rural Shropshire before coming to New College, Oxford to study for a degree in Biochemistry. I then obtained my doctorate in the Department of Physiology, University College London. After London, I spent 3 years working as a post-doc in the Pitié-Salpêtrière University Hospital in Paris, France, which is where I fell in love with neuroscience. I returned to Oxford to the University Laboratory of Physiology, which subsequently became the Department for Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, to work in the laboratories of Prof Colin Blakemore and Prof Ian Thompson. I was then recruited by Prof Fran Ashcroft to run the Mouse Neurophysiology Core Facility as part of a large Wellcome Trust funded initiative on Ion Channels in Disease (OXION). This I did for over a decade, researching, collaborating and training scientists in a wide range of electrophysiology and anatomical techniques. I have recently reduced my research interests as I am an elected Oxford City Councillor (which is very time-consuming!), but continue to enjoy teaching neuroscience.
Research and Teaching
Running a core facility in neurophysiology means that I have collaborated on many projects, and used many experimental techniques. These include a variety of different ways to record neuronal activity, and I helped develop miniature devices for measuring EEG in mice. Other projects I am involved in use optogenetics to control neural activity, in particular looking at how signals from the motor cortex (for movement control) affect the sensory cortex, informing it of the expected sensory consequences of the movement.
I have tutored Neurophysiology and Neuroscience to medical and psychology students for 20 years, though only joined the teaching staff at Corpus in 2022. I occasionally give lectures on the FHS and MSc Neuroscience courses. I have supervised five DPhil projects and numerous MSc Neuroscience projects as well as several undergraduate FHS project students. My research has ranged from decoding the signals used by cells in the retina as they extend axons along the optic nerve to find targets in the developing brain, to demonstrating that the antibodies present to in the blood of patients with epilepsy were causative of the disease.
Publications
Antonoudiou P, Tan YL, Kontou G, Upton AL, Mann EO. (2020) Parvalbumin and Somatostatin Interneurons Contribute to the Generation of Hippocampal Gamma Oscillations. J Neurosci. 2020 Sep 30;40(40):7668-7687.
Grandjean J, Corcoba A, Kahn MC, Upton AL, Deneris ES, Seifritz E, Helmchen F, Mann EO, Rudin M, Saab BJ. (2019) A brain-wide functional map of the serotonergic responses to acute stress and fluoxetine. Nat Commun;10(1):350. (With a correction in Nat Commun. 2021 Feb 15;12(1):1168.)
Rosch RE, Wright S, Cooray G, Papadopoulou M, Goyal S, Lim M, Vincent A, Upton AL, Baldeweg T, Friston KJ. (2018) NMDA-receptor antibodies alter cortical microcircuit dynamics. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A ;115(42):E9916-E9925.
S. Wright, K. Hashemi, L. Stasiak, J. Bartram, B. Lang, A. Vincent and A.L. Upton (2015) Epileptogenic effects of NMDAR-antibodies in a passive transfer mouse model. Brain 138,3159-67
A. Rodríguez-Moreno, A. González-Rueda, A. Banerjee, A.L. Upton, M.T. Craig, O. Paulsen (2013) Presynaptic self-depression at developing neocortical synapses. Neuron 77(1):35-42
J. Li, D.S. Bravo, A.L. Upton, G. Gilmour, M.D. Tricklebank, M. Fillenz, C. Martin, J.P. Lowry, D.M. Bannerman, S.B. McHugh (2011) Close temporal coupling of neuronal activity and tissue oxygen responses in rodent whisker barrel cortex. Eur. J. Neurosci. 34(12):1983-1996.
A.J. Trevelyan, A.L. Upton, P.M. Cordery and I.D. Thompson (2007) An experimentally induced duplication of retinotopic mapping within primary visual cortex. Eur. J. Neurosci. 26; 3277-90.
A.L. Upton, P.M. Cordery and I.D. Thompson (2007) Emergence of topography in the developing hamster retinocollicular projection: axial differences and the role of cell death. Eur. J. Neurosci. 25, 2319-2328.
T. Rashid, A.L. Upton, A. Blentic, T. Ciossek, B. Knöll, I.D. Thompson and U. Drescher (2005) Opposing gradients of ephrinAs and EphA7 in the superior colliculus are essential for topographic mapping in the mammalian visual system. Neuron 47, 1-13.
Spires TL, Molnár Z, Kind PC, Cordery PM, Upton AL, Blakemore C, Hannan AJ.
Cereb Cortex. 2005 Apr;15(4):385-93.
S.B. Mierau, R.M. Meredith, A.L. Upton and O. Paulsen (2004) Dissociation of experience-dependent and -independent changes in excitatory synaptic transmission during development of barrel cortex.
Proc Natl Acad Sci; 101(43):15518-23.
A.L. Upton, A. Ravary, N. Salichon, R. Moessner, K.-P. Lesch, R. Hen, I. Seif and P. Gaspar (2002) Lack of 5-HT1B receptor or serotonin transporter have different effects on the segregation of retinal axons in the lateral geniculate nucleus compared to the superior colliculus. Neurosci. 111 (3), 597-610.
Salichon N, Gaspar P, Upton AL, Picaud S, Hanoun N, Hamon M, De Maeyer E, Murphy DL, Mossner R, Lesch KP, Hen R, Seif I. (2001) Excessive activation of serotonin (5-HT) 1B receptors disrupts the formation of sensory maps in monoamine oxidase a and 5-ht transporter knock-out mice. J Neurosci.1;21(3):884-96.
A.L. Upton, N. Salichon, C. Lebrand, A. Ravary, R. Blakely , I. Seif and P. Gaspar (1999) Excess of 5-HT alters the segregation of ispi/contralateral retinal projections in MAOA knock-out mice: possible role of 5-HT uptake in retinal ganglion cells during development. J. Neurosci. 19 (16), 7007-7024.
A.L. Upton and S.E. Moss (1994) Molecular cloning of a novel N-terminal variant of rat annexin II. Biochem. J. 302, 425-428.
Upton AL, Moss SE. (1992) Calcium-binding proteins: beyond hands and loops. Trends Cell Biol.;2(6):175-6.
Book chapters:
A.L. Upton, H.C. Edwards and S.E. Moss. Calcium-independent functions for the annexins (1995) The Annexins Ed. B. Seaton.