Tim Viney PhD

Tim Viney carried out his Ph.D. in the group of Dr. Botond Roska at the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel, where he studied neural circuits of the retina (2005-2010). He defined several types of ganglion cells in a transgenic mouse line based on two-photon targeted patch clamp recordings in wholemount retinas. He demonstrated that "approach sensitive" ganglion cells receive glycinergic inhibition from AII amacrine cells, and that dopaminergic inner plexiform cells are presynaptic to a type of intrinsically photosensitive ganglion cell. Next, he moved to Oxford as an MRC Career Development Fellow in the group of Professor Peter Somogyi at the MRC Anatomical Neuropharmacology Unit (2010-2012). Here he investigated the spike timing of identified GABAergic neurons in the rat hippocampus in relation to different behavioral states.

Tim Viney also discovered a 'negative marker' for axo-axonic cells, the transcription factor SATB1. In 2012, he became an MRC Investigator Scientist, and he was elected as a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College from 2013-2019. Recently, he discovered a specialized kind of rhythmically-bursting GABAergic neuron in the mouse medial septum that selectively innervates GABAergic neurons in the dorsal presubiculum and entorhinal cortex, named orchid cells (Viney et al eLife 2018), and defined a group of 'low rhythmic neurons' of the medial septum that preferentially target the dentate gyrus and CA3 (Salib et al J Neurosci 2019). In 2020 he became a Research Fellow at Wolfson College and a Departmental Career Development Fellow. For further information about his lab please see the Viney Group page.