I studied neuroscience for my undergraduate degree in University College Dublin (UCD) from 2014 to 2018. In September 2018, I started lab rotations on the Wellcome Trust Neuroscience PhD programme in University College London (UCL), where I worked in the groups of Prof Patricia Salinas and Prof David Attwell. I chose to do my PhD in the lab of Dr Soyon Hong at the UK Dementia Research Institute (UKDRI) at UCL from September 2019. Since passing my PhD viva in November 2023, I have continued working in the Hong lab as a UKDRI cross-centre postdoctoral research fellow.

My research in the Hong lab has focused on chemogenetic modulation of neuronal activity and imaging of neuron-microglia interactions in both wild-type (WT) mice and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) mouse models. I found that neuronal hyperactivity induces complement-mediated loss of specific synapses in adult WT mice. Spatial transcriptomic analysis highlighted adaptive immune cells from the B lymphocyte lineage as critical mediators of this process along with the brain’s innate immune cells, microglia. Using AD mouse models, I also showed that complement-mediated hippocampal synapse loss can be ameliorated by inhibiting neuronal hyperactivity.