Dr. Justin Botterill PhD
Assistant Professor Anatomy, Physiology and Pharmacology

I am actively recruiting graduate students (Master’s and PhD)! If you are interested in research topics such as learning and memory, affective behaviours, and brain disorders, please email me with a brief statement on your research interests, goals, and a copy of your CV. 

Assistant Professor, Anatomy, Physiology & Pharmacology, University of Saskatchewan

Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Scarborough

Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Dementia Research, Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research & New York University Langone Health

Ph.D., Cognition and Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, University of Saskatchewan

BSc (High Honours), Department of Psychology, University of Saskatchewan

Hippocampal circuits in cognitive and affective behaviours:

The hippocampus is a brain region that is critical for episodic memory, spatial navigation, and providing contextual information relevant to different emotional states. My research is focused on the dentate gyrus subfield of the hippocampus because it is the main input to the hippocampus and acts as a key relay station to other hippocampal subfields. Dentate granule cells are the main excitatory cell population in the dentate gyrus and numerous studies have shown that they are necessary for hippocampal functions, such as learning, memory, and emotion.

A second excitatory cell population in the dentate gyrus are known as mossy cells (MCs) directly regulate granule cell activity and therefore MCs have also been implicated in diverse hippocampal functions, such as learning, memory, novelty detection, and emotion. However, MCs have been historically understudied due to a lack of cell-selective tools. Recent advances in genetically modified mice and cell-selective techniques now provide researchers with the tools necessary to investigate how MCs influence hippocampal function. My research program will evaluate the functions of MCs in hippocampus using diverse techniques, including behavioural testing, circuit manipulations, and electrophysiological recordings.

Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (mechanisms & treatment):

Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is the most common form of adult epilepsy and is characterized by spontaneous unprovoked seizures and debilitating cognitive and behavioral comorbidities. Approximately 33% of patients with TLE are resistant to current treatments, which emphasizes the need to develop new and effective therapeutic treatments. Due to experimental limitations in the human population, researchers often use animal models to study the neurobiological mechanisms of TLE and test novel therapeutic approaches. Experimental evidence from rodents and brain recordings from humans have strongly implicated the dentate gyrus subfield of the hippocampus as a critical region for seizure generation. My research program will use a combination of stereotaxic surgery, EEG recordings, circuit manipulations, biochemistry, electrophysiology, and microscopy to a) identify the specific cells, circuits, and proteins in the dentate gyrus that cause seizures to occur and b) test new therapeutic treatments on these targets to determine if interventions can prevent or ameliorate seizure activity.

Laboratory Techniques:

• Stereotaxic surgery
• Adeno-associated viruses for circuit mapping & manipulations
• Rodent behavioural testing
• Biochemistry
• Microscopy
• Electrophysiology
• Behavioural pharmacology
• Optogenetics
• DREADDs

1. Baillie L, Banow R, Botterill JJ. (2022). The impact of lecture capture availability on academic            performance in a large biomedical science course. Education and Information Technologies.                   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-022-10903-1

2. Botterill JJ, Khlaifia A, Walters BJ, Brimble MA, Scharfman HE, Arruda-Carvalho M. (2021). Off-target          expression of Cre-dependent adeno-associated viruses in wild type C57BL/6J mice. eNeuro*, 8 (6).        https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0363-21.2021

       *Cover slide on the eNeuro homepage (December 1st, 2021).

       *Featured on the eNeuro blog (December 16th,2021):         https://blog.eneuro.org/2021/12/snapshots-dec-2021

       *eNeuro Featured Research (January 4 – January 10, 2022):        https://www.eneuro.org/content/featured-research*Featured on the Society for Neuroscience           Zoom Background Images:                                                             https://www.sfn.org/initiatives/confronting-covid-19/zoom-backgrounds

3. Botterill JJ, Gerencer KJ, Vinod KY, Alcantara-Gonzalez D, Scharfman HE. (2021). Dorsal and ventral         mossy cells differ in their axonal projections throughout the dentate gyrus of the mouse.        hippocampus. Hippocampus, 31 (5), 522-539. https://doi.org/10.1002/hipo.23314

4. Botterill JJ, Vinod KY, Gerencer KJ, Teixeira CM, LaFrancois JJ, Scharfman HE. (2021). Bidirectional            regulation of cognitive and anxiety-like behaviors by dentate gyrus mossy cells in male and                 female mice.The Journal of Neuroscience*, 41 (11), 2475-2495.                                      https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1724-20.2021

       *Cover article for The Journal of Neuroscience (March 17, 2021 issue).

5. Stephens GS, Fu CH, Romain CP, Zheng Y, Botterill JJ, Scharfman HE, Liu Y, Chin J. (2020). Genes        bound by ΔFosB in different conditions with recurrent seizures regulate similar neuronal           functions. Frontiers in Neuroscience, Neurogenomics. 14 (472).        https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.00472

6. Brymer KJ, Johnston J, Botterill JJ, Romay-Tallon R, Mitchell MA, Allen J, Pinna G, Caruncho HJ,        Kalynchuk LE. (2020). Fast-acting antidepressant-like effects of Reelin evaluated in the                           repeated-corticosterone chronic stress paradigm. Neuropsychopharmacology, 45 (10), 1707-1716.        https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-020-0609-z

 7. Botterill JJ, Lu YL, LaFrancois JJ, Bernstein HL, Alcantara-Gonzalez D, Jain S, Leary P, Scharfman HE.        (2019). An excitatory and epileptogenic effect of dentate gyrus mossy cells in a mouse model of         epilepsy. Cell Reports*, 29, 2875-2889. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2019.10.100

       *Study featured in a research commentary:
       Goicouria & Liu (2019). E-I E-I Woe: Mossy cell regulation of granule cell activity in temporal lobe        epilepsy. Epilepsy Currents, 20 (3), 173-174. https://doi.org/10.1177/1535759720920828

8. Bernstein HL, Lu YL, Botterill JJ, Scharfman HE. (2019). Novelty and novel objects increase c-Fos        immunoreactivity in mossy cells in the mouse dentate gyrus. Neural Plasticity, #1815371.        https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/1815371

9. Jain S, LaFrancois JJ, Botterill JJ, Alcantara-Gonzalez D, Scharfman HE. (2019). Adult neurogenesis in        the mouse dentate gyrus protects the hippocampus from neuronal injury following severe        seizures. Hippocampus, 29 (8), 683-709. https://doi.org/10.1002/hipo.23062

10. Botterill JJ, Nogovitsyn N, Caruncho HJ, Kalynchuk LE. (2017). Selective plasticity of hippocampal        GABAergic interneuron populations following kindling of different brain regions. The Journal of        Comparative Neurology, 525 (2), 389-406. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cne.24071

11. Caruncho HJ, Brymer KJ, Roman-Tallon R, Mitchell MA, Rivera-Baltana T, Botterill J, Olivares JM,        Kalynchuk LE. (2016). Reelin-related disturbances in depression: Implications for translational        studies. Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience, 10 (48). http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fncel.2016.00048

12. Botterill JJ, Brymer KJ, Caruncho HJ, Kalynchuk LE. (2015). Aberrant hippocampal neurogenesis after        limbic kindling: Relationship to BDNF and hippocampal dependent memory. Epilepsy & Behavior,        47, 83-92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2015.04.046 

13. Botterill JJ, Guskjolen AJ, Marks WN, Caruncho HJ, Kalynchuk LE. (2015). Limbic but not non-limbic        kindling impairs conditioned fear and promotes plasticity of NPY and its Y2 receptor. Brain        Structure and Function, 220 (6), 3641-3655. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00429-014-0880-z 

14. Botterill JJ, Fournier NM, Guskjolen AJ, Lussier AL, Marks WN, Kalynchuk LE. (2014). Amygdala        kindling disrupts trace and delay fear conditioning with parallel changes in Fos protein expression        throughout the limbic brain. Neuroscience, 265, 158-171.        http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroscience.2014.01.040 

15. Fournier NM,Botterill JJ, Marks WN, Guskjolen AJ, Kalynchuk LE. (2013). Impaired recruitment of        seizure-generated neurons into functional memory networks of the adult dentate gyrus following         long-term amygdala kindling. Experimental Neurology, 244, 96-104.        http://dx.doi.org//10.1016/j.expneurol.2012.11.031 

16. Botterill JJ, Guskjolen AJ, Caruncho HJ, Kalynchuk LE. (2011). Rodent models as tools to discover        novel therapeutic targets in the brain: The case of epilepsy. In M. Loza & L. Botana (Eds)        Therapeutic targets: modulation, inhibition, and activation. Wiley-Blackwell.        https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118185537.ch13 

17. Fournier NM, Andersen DR, Botterill JJ, Sterner EY, Lussier AL, Caruncho HJ, Kalynchuk LE. (2010).        The effect of amygdala kindling on hippocampal neurogenesis coincides with decreased reelin        and DISC1 expression in the adult dentate gyrus. Hippocampus, 20 (5), 659-671.        https://dx.doi.org//10.1002/hipo.20653