Camilla Bellone facts for kids

Camilla Bellone (born around 1975) is a scientist from Italy who studies the brain. She is a professor at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. Dr. Bellone's lab explores how our brains control social behavior. They also look at how small problems in the brain's wiring can lead to conditions like Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Camilla Bellone's Early Life and Education

Camilla Bellone was born in Italy in 1975. She first studied pharmacology at the University of Milano in 1998. There, she found a great teacher and guide, Monica Di Luca, who was also a brain scientist. Camilla earned her Master's degree in Pharmacy.

Discovering a Passion for the Brain

Dr. Bellone became very interested in neuroscience, which is the study of the brain. She loved trying to answer the many mysteries about how our brains work. In Dr. Di Luca's lab, Camilla studied how different proteins in brain cells interact. She also looked at how these interactions help brain cells stay healthy and stable.

Studying Brain Connections

Camilla continued her studies at the University of Milano for her PhD. She wanted to learn more about how brain cells connect and communicate. She realized she wanted to study how these connections actually work and change over time.

So, Dr. Bellone reached out to Christian Lüscher at the University of Geneva. He was studying how brain connections change and send signals. Dr. Lüscher accepted her into his lab, and the University of Milano helped fund her PhD studies abroad. This is how Camilla moved to Geneva.

After finishing her PhD, Dr. Bellone joined the lab of Roger Nicoll at the University of California, San Francisco. Soon after, she published an important paper in the science journal Neuron. This paper was about how special receptors in brain cells move around in young mice.

In 2007, Dr. Bellone returned to Switzerland. She planned to become an independent researcher at a university. From 2007 to 2011, she worked in Dr. Lüscher's lab again. During this time, she started to become an independent scientist.

Camilla Bellone's Career and Research

In 2010, Dr. Bellone received a special award called the Ambizione Grant. This grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation helps young scientists start their own research projects. For Camilla, this grant was a big step towards her independent career in neuroscience. She had an idea to use her skills to study how the brain's reward system works in social situations.

Starting Her Own Lab

In 2014, Dr. Bellone applied to the University of Lausanne to start her very own lab. With funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation, she became an assistant professor. Her lab at UNIL focused on understanding how the brain's reward system develops. This system uses a chemical called dopamine and is important for feeling good.

Using different methods, Dr. Bellone explored how changes to this brain system affect how much mice want to be social. Her work aims to help us understand the brain basis for complex social behaviors. It also looks at how this system might be involved in brain conditions like Autism Spectrum Disorder, which can affect social interactions.

Research at the University of Geneva

Dr. Bellone then applied for a position back at the University of Geneva. In 2016, she was offered a position as a professor in the Department of Basic Neuroscience. Her lab at the University of Geneva continues to study the brain circuits that control social behavior in mice. This research helps us better understand how problems in these circuits might lead to brain development conditions.

Dr. Bellone also joined the NCCR-SYNAPSY project in 2016. This project brings together basic scientists and doctors to understand how brain connections relate to mental health conditions. Dr. Bellone works closely with psychiatrists and doctors to help connect basic research with real-world patient needs, especially for Autism Spectrum Disorder.

She is also involved in many other scientific activities. She helps review papers for important science journals like Nat. Neurosci. and J. Neuroscience. She is also a member of the Society for Neuroscience. There, she has given talks about career development for women in science, sharing her own journey.

How the Brain Handles Social Rewards

Dr. Bellone wanted to explore how changes in brain proteins might be linked to problems with social behavior. She combined her past research with her new interests. When she read studies about the genes linked to Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), she found that many of these genes are involved in how brain cells connect.

Her team found that if these genes were changed, it affected social behavior. They suggested that we need to understand more about the brain circuits that control social behavior. This would help us understand why social behavior might be different in conditions like ASD.

Following this, Dr. Bellone and her team created a model of ASD in mice. They studied a protein called Shank3, which is known to be involved in ASD. They found that mice with less Shank3 had trouble with social interactions. They also had changes in how their brain cells sent signals. However, Dr. Bellone's team found ways to change the activity of these brain cells. They could use medicines or special light to improve social behavior in the mice.

In a recent project with researchers at UNIL, Dr. Bellone explored how the immune system and certain brain receptors affect sociability. They found that activating a specific receptor caused brain immune cells to release a chemical called TNF-a. This chemical then affected how other brain cells communicated, leading to social problems in mice.

Awards and Honors

• 2004 Swiss Society for Neuroscience travel fellowship
• 2010 FENS/IBRO travel grant
• 2010 Ambizione grant from Swiss National Science Foundation
• 2012 Gertrude Von Meissner Foundation prize
• 2014 2014 Fondation du Prix Pfizer de la Recherche
• 2014 Professor Boursier Scholarship from Swiss National Science Foundation
• 2014-2018 FENS- KAVLI Scholar
• 2015 FENS-KAVLI network of Excellence

Select Publications

• Sebastiano Bariselli, Stamatina Tzanoulinou, Christelle Glangetas, Clément Prévost-Solié, Luca Pucci, Joanna Viguié, Paola Bezzi, Eoin C O'Connor, François Georges, Christian Lüscher & Camilla Bellone. SHANK3 controls maturation of social reward circuits in the VTA. Nat. Neurosci. Nat Neurosci. 2016 Jul;19(7):926-34. I.F. 15.5
• Kehoe LA, Bellone C, De Roo M, Zandueta A, Dey PN, Pérez-Otaño I, Muller D. GluN3A promotes dendritic spine pruning and destabilization during postnatal development. J Neurosci. 2014 Jul 9;34(28):9213-21. I.F. 6.91
• Gabrielle Pouchelon, Frédéric Gambino, Camilla Bellone, Christian Lüscher, Anthony Holtmaat, Denis Jabaudon. Rewiring of distinct thalamocortical inputs instructs the modality-specific identity of postsynaptic L4 neurons. Nature. 2014 Jul 24;511(7510):471-4 I.F. 38.6
• De la Rossa A*, Bellone C*, Golding B, Vitali I, Moss J, Toni N, Lüscher C, Jabaudon D, In vivo reprogramming of circuit connectivity in postmitotic neocortical neurons, Nature Neuroscience, 2013, 6:193-200. *equal contribution.
• Bellone C., Lüscher C., Mameli M.. Mechanisms of synaptic depression triggered by metabotropic glutamate receptors. Cell. Mol. Life Science 2008 Sep;65(18):2913-23. Review.
• Bellone C. and Nicoll R.. Rapid bidirectional switching of synaptic NMDA receptors. Neuron 2007 :779-85 (IF 13.9)
• Bellone C. and Lüscher C.. mGluRs induce a long-term depression in the ventral tegmental area that involves a switch of the subunit composition of AMPA receptors. Eur J Neurosci. 2005 :1280-8. (IF 3.7)
• Gardoni F., Bellone C., Viviani B., Marinovich M., Cattabeni F. and Di Luca M.. Lack of PSD-95 drives hippocampal but not cortical neuronal death through aCaMKII/AMPA potentiation . Eur J Neurosci. 2002 :7 (IF 3.7)
• Gardoni F., Kamal A., Bellone C., Biessels GJ., Ramakers GMJ., Cattabeni F., Gispen WH.and Di Luca M.. Effects of streptozotocin-Diabetes on the hippocampal NMDA receptor complex in rats. J. Neurochem, 2002 :438-47. (IF 4.3)
• Gardoni F., Bellone C., Cattabeni F. and Di Luca M.. PKC activation modulates aCaMKII binding to NR2A subunit of NMDA receptor complex. J.Biol.Chem 2001 : 7609-7613 (IF 5.8)