Camilla Bellone

Camilla Bellone (born c. 1975) is an Italian neuroscientist and associate professor in the Department of Basic Neuroscience at the University of Geneva, in Switzerland. Bellone's laboratory explores the molecular mechanisms and neural circuits underlying social behavior and probes how defects at the molecular and circuit level give rise to psychiatric disease states such as Autism Spectrum Disorders. Early life and education Bellone was born in Italy in 1975. She completed her Master's in Pharmacy. Bellone became fascinated by neuroscience and developed a passion for answering the many unknown questions about brain function.

Bellone stayed at the University of Milano to begin her graduate studies exploring the molecular biology and structural composition of the synapse. Upon activation of dopaminergic VTA synapses, Bellone found a metabotropic glutamate receptor mediated redistribution of AMPARs such that naive AMPARs were switched for GluR2 containing AMPARs leading to LTD. Bellone found that cocaine caused significant increases in AMPA:NMDA ratio, a sign of neuroplastic adaptation, as well as a recruitment of AMPARs to the synapse that lack GluR2. Bellone found that synaptic activity in neonatal hippocampal synapses can cause a change in the subunit composition of NMDARs. Bellone and her colleagues found that, not only do other drugs of abuse also elicit the same AMPAR redistribution, but also optogenetically stimulating the VTA dopamine neurons drives the same redistribution in the absence of drugs. Bellone was also able to show that positively modulating mGluR1 in vivo was sufficient to rescue the abnormal maturation due to in utero cocaine exposure. For Bellone, this grant helped her to transition towards an independent career in neuroscience. Her lab at UNIL focused on understanding the development of the brain's reward circuitry, the mesocorticolimbic dopamine system, in mouse models.

Bellone applied for a position back at the University of Geneva. Bellone's lab at the University of Geneva continues to probe the dopaminergic neural circuits underlying social behavior in mice as a means to better our understanding of how dysfunction in these circuits may lead to psychiatric and neurodevelopmental diseases. Bellone collaborates closely with psychiatrists and clinical scientists to inspire translational research surrounding ASD. While they found impairments in social behavior upon modulation of glutamate receptor scaffolding genes, they suggest that a better understanding of the neural circuits driving social behavior is needed to understand the mechanisms that drive aberrant social behavior in disease. Using shRNA, they modelled Shank3, a synapse scaffolding protein known to be implicated in ASD phenotypes, insufficiency in the VTA of mice. They found that μ-opioid receptor activation causes microglial release of TNF-a, a pro-inflammatory cytokine. Bellone C, Mameli M, Lüscher C. In utero exposure to cocaine delays postnatal synaptic maturation of glutamatergic transmission in the VTA. Nature Neurosci., 2011, 14:1439-46. 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. Lüscher C, Bellone C.. Cocaine-evoked synaptic plasticity: a key to addiction. Nat Neurosci. 2008 : 737–8. (IF 14.8) Bellone C. and Nicoll R.. Rapid bidirectional switching of synaptic NMDA receptors. Neuron 2007 :779-85 (IF 13.9) Bellone C. and Lüscher C.. Cocaine triggered AMPA receptor redistribution is reversed in vivo by mGluR-dependent long-term depression. Nat Neurosci. 2006 :636-41. (IF 14.8) 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 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)