Dr. Chopek completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Dalhousie University (2014-2018), Department of Medical Neuroscience working with both Dr. Zhang and Dr. Brownstone at University College London. His work has begun to characterize and understand microcircuit formation in both the medulla reticular formation, a centre vital for the initiation of movement and the lumbar spinal cord, the area in which movement is produced. To achieve this, he uses a combination of transgenic mouse lines, optogenetic or photo-manipulation of single cell or whole cell populations, in-vitro electrophysiology, viral tracers and confocal microscopy. To date, he has subdivided the chx10 neuronal population in the brainstem into two distinct cell populations based on their morphology, biophysical properties, connectivity and projection patterns. In addition, he has also found a novel connectivity pattern of the spinal V3 interneuron population, which in addition to forming commissural connections also synapse locally with ipsilateral motoneurons.

Dr. Chopek joined the Department of Physiology & Pathophysiology and the Spinal Cord Research Centre on September 1, 2018.