Neuroscience > Meet The Faculty > UC Davis Neuroscience in the News

			UC Davis Neuroscience in the News Research in the News: Bruce Lyeth is elected President of the National Neurotrauma Association. *Phil Schwartzkroin is named co-editor for the Journal Epilepsia.* Barbara Chapman, Andy Huberman, and Colenso Speer publish a paper in Neuron entitled "Spontaneous Retinal Activity Mediates Development of Ocular Dominance Columns and Binocular Receptive Fields in V1." Karen Bales, Blythe Corbett, Paul Knoepfler, David Pleasure, Tony Simon, Chengji Zhou, and Karen Zito all join the faculty in the Neuroscience Graduate Group. Joyce Ma and Colenso Speer attended courses at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. Bartlett Moore and Amrita Puri attended a Cognitive Neuroscience course at Dartmouth University. The UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute is awarded a NIH institutional training grant for postdoctoral research. Edward G. Jones is elected a member to the National Academy of Sciences. Barbara Chapman, Andy Huberman, and Leo Chalupa publish a paper in Science suggesting that correlated neuronal activity in the retina is not required for the formation of eye-specific projections to the LGN (Science 300:994-998). Karen Sigvardt's research and participation in the treatment of Parkinson's Disease was highlighted on the Sacramento Pulse TV Show. Melissa Bauman's research in Davis Amaral's lab was highlighted on the Sacramento Pulse TV Show. Ted Jones' efforts to create a digital brain atlas in order to study schizophrenia and other neurological disorders was highlighted on the Sacramento Pulse TV Show. Kathleen Baynes' research on split-brain patients was highlighted in the Journal Science. By studying an epileptic patient whose brain was surgically divided to control seizures, Baynes and her colleagues found that the centers for speech and writing, long thought to be in the same side of the brain, can reside in different hemispheres. Barbara Chapman reports that neuronal activity is not only required for setting up specific connections in the developing mammalian visual system, but also for maintaining those connections. Science, 287:2479-82. In a Neuron feature article entitled "Dynamics of cyclic GMP synthesis in retinal rods", Marie Burns describes how negative feedback to a signaling cascade can dramatically alter a neuron's signaling properties. The article will appear in the September 26 issue of the journal Neuron. Paul and Randi Hagerman, world experts on Fragile-X syndrome, publish the definitive text on "Fragile X Diagnosis, Treatment, and Research," third edition. Paul Hagerman's research was recently highlighted on BioMednet.com In a paper entitled "Rapid recruitment of NMDA receptor transport packets to nascent synapses," Philip Washbourne and Kimberley McAllister report that synapses between visual cortical neurons can form much faster than previously believed--within minutes of contact between an axon and dendrite. Nature Neuroscience 5:751-759. Recent Events: Neuroscience Graduate Students, Faculty, Postdoctoral Fellows, and Staff will enjoy a weekend retreat at the Marconi Conference Center at Point Reyes, CA. Rob Berman is named the new Chair of the Neuroscience Graduate Group. Bartlett Moore and Jim Long become predoctoral fellows on the Vision Science Training Program headed by Jack Werner. Past fellows include Henry Alitto, Andy Huberman, Tom McBride, Christin McCool, Daniel Rathbun, and Bong Walsh. Edward G. Jones is elected a member to the National Academy of Sciences. *Jack Werner and Leo Chalupa have published their book The Visual Neurosciences* (MIT Press).** Cyndi Schumann is published a paper in the Journal of Neuroscience regarding abnormal development of the amygdala and hippocampus in children and adolescents with autism (J Neuroscience 24(28):6392-6401). Shasta Sabo, a former postdoctoral fellow in Kim McAllister's laboratory, reports on how the growth cone filopedia is related to axonal growth and early synapse formation in the Nature Neuroscience (Nat Neurosci 6(12):1264-1269). Hwai-Jong Cheng studied the molecular mechanisms of stereotyped axon pruning, a widespread regressive phenomenon in the developing brain that helps sculpt the pattern of neuronal connections. They showed that Semaphorins, through plexins, act as retraction inducers controlling stereotyped pruning in the mammalian brain. The results were published in Cell (Cell 113:285-299). Peter Marler to give a "History of Neuroscience" lecture at the upcoming 2004 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego. The Center for Mind and Brain celebrated their grand opening and welcomes two new faculty: Silvia Bunge and Lee Miller. Jochen Ditterich has joined the faculty at the Center for Neuroscience. Paul Hagerman discovers carriers of the FXTAS. Bruno Olshausen is directing a Gordon Research Conference on natural vision September 2004 in Oxford, UK. Edward G. Jones' career is honored at the international meeting of "Thalamocortical Assembly" at UC Davis in March 2004. Kim McAllister has become a member of the Society for Neuroscience Program Committee. Jack Werner was successfully awarded a Vision Training Grant for UC Davis from the National Institutes of Health. The award will fund four predoctoral and four postdoctoral trainees. Current Neuroscience Graduate trainees are Henry Alitto, Andy Huberman, Tom McBride, Christin McCool, and Bart Moore. Former graduate student Scott Murray and postdoctoral fellow Philip Washbourne have accepted faculty jobs at the Univesity of Washington and University of Oregon, respectively. Neuroscience Graduate Group Faculty vote to raise graduate student stipends. Davis Neuroscience Graduate students now have the highest salaries/cost of living within the UC system. UC Davis named one of theTop 10 institutions in the country for Best Places for Postdocs by The Scientist, Feb. 10 2003 issue. Edward Jones, Director of the Center for Neuroscience, invited to give Presidential Lecture at the Society for Neuroscience Meeting in New Orleans, 2003. Ken Britten named as new Chair of Neuroscience Graduate Group. Karen Sigvardt steps down as Chair after 2 years of fantastic service to the group. Thanks a lot, Karen! Edward Jones, Director of the Center for Neuroscience, leads the way as he and his lab join a consortium with investigators at UC Irvine, Stanford University, and the University of Michigan, to research the causes and treatments for schizophrenia and depression. The consortium received an award of more than $38 million from the Pritzker Neuropsychiatric Disorders Research Fund to perform this research. The UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute opens their new $43.2 million, 136,000-squrarefoot complex. UC Davis Medical Center is identified as a center of excellence by the Huntington's Disease Society of America; Davis is one 16 centers in the United States to earn the designation. The Department of Neurology holds three clinics a month dedicated to caring for patients with Huntington's Disease. Phyllis Wise is recruited to be the new Dean of the College of Biological Sciences. Wise's research interests encompass endocrine and neurochemical mechanisms during aging, and estrogen's neuroprotective action after injury and during aging. Among Wise's many grants and awards, she currently is the recipient of a NIH MERIT Award and other NIH awards totaling more than $4.6 million as well as $8 million in funding from the National Center for Research Resources. Bill Jagust, Chair of the Neurology Department, named interim Director of the UC Davis Imaging Research Center. The Imaging Center is in the process of recruiting a permanent director. Currently the center has a 1.5 T GE magnet with echoplanar imaging, used for structural MRI, functional MRI, and diffusion tensor imaging. Recently, a 3.0T systemhas been purchased to upgrade these capabilities. Charan Ranganath, Assistant Professor, is inducted into the prestigious Memory Disorders Research Society Bruno Olshausen, Associate Professor, organizes a new Gordon Research Conference on Natural Scene Statistics. Leah Krubitzer, Associate Professor and winner of the MacArthur Prize, hosts an international meeting on Brain Development and Evolution in Tuscany. Dorothy Gietzen, chairs the Annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior in Santa Cruz, CA. Brian Mullony, organizes and will speak in a Symposium "Neural Mechanisms of Intersegmental Coordination" at the 2003 Society for Neuroscience Meeting in Orlando. Marty Usrey and Kimberley McAllister, direct a course at Cold Spring Harbor on the "Structure, Function, and Development of the Visual System." Edward Jones, Director Center for Neuroscience, heads a new neuroscience imaging program at UC Davis. The specific goal of the program is to discover the causes of schizophrenia and depression; the broader objective is to develop a database of neuroscientific information that spans several orders of magnitude, from genes expressed in individual cells to entire brain regions. A $2 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation will be used to acquire equipment essential for the program, including a Zeiss multi-photon imaging system and an Affymetrix Genechip array system. David Amaral, Research Director of the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute, testified in Washington, DC, before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform. The committee sought testimony from Amaral and three other experts regarding autism rates. More information David Amaral, Research Director of the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute, becomes the first holder of the Beneto Foundation Chair, created by the Beneto Foundation of Sacramento. Resources like the endowed chair will help Amaral and his colleagues understand and ultimately eliminate the neurodevelopmental disease of autism, which impairs the ability of people to interact with other people and their environment. Edward Jones, Director Center for Neuroscience, steps down as President of the Society for Neuroscience. Recent Awards: Students and Postdocs Graduate students Sarah Long and Amrita Puri received an ARCS Fellowship for 2006. Past winners of this annual award include Henry Alitto, Brooke Babineau, Regina Faulkner, Andy Huberman, Kami Koldewyn, Amy Lincoln, Adriane Mayda, Bong Walsh, and Christine Wu-Nordahl. Sarah Long received a UC Davis Internal Fellowship for 2006. Congratulations Sarah for receiving your Zolk Fellowship. Regina Faulkner received two UC Davis Internal Fellowships for 2006. Congratulations Regina for receiving your UCD research fellowships. Malaika Singleton received a UC Davis TA-Fellowship in 2005. Congratulations Malaika for receiving your fellowship. Denise Cook received a the Hales Fellowship Award from the department of Psychiatry for 2005. Jim Long also received a Hales Fellowship, in 2004. Bart Moore receives a fellowship to attend a special vision course in Germany. Claudia Krispel and Andy Huberman attend and present at a Summer 2004 "Vision Down Under" conference in Australia. Christin McCool, Bart Moore, and Daniel Rathbun were selected to attend the Cold Spring Harbor summer course "Structure, Function, and Development of the Visual System" in 2004. Maysha Mohamedi received a travel fellowship to study Computational Neuroscience at the Riken Brain Science Institute in Japan for the summer 2004. Andy Huberman is selected to attend the Cold Spring Harbor summer course on Neurodevelopment in 2004. Andy Huberman attended the Gordon Conference on Neural Development in August 2004. Adriane Votaw, First-year Graduate Student, receives both an ARCS and a Graduate Scholars Fellowship. Brooke Babineau, First-year Graduate Student, receives an ARCS Fellowship and a M.I.N.D. Institute Fellowship. Kate Waimey, First-year Graduate Student, receives a M.I.N.D. Institute Fellowship. Jennifer Kelly, Graduate Student in the Amaral Lab, receives a National Research Service Award from the N.I.H. Christine Wu, Graduate Student in the Jagust Lab, receives a National Research Service Award from the N.I.H. Christine's project is titled "Neural correlates of mild cognitive impairment". In Spring 2002, Christine was also awarded a Northern California Alzheimer's Association Student Excellence Award. Scott Murray, Graduate Student in the Olshausen Lab, receives a National Research Service Award from the N.I.H. Scott's project is titled "Computing 3D object shape from motion cues". Jeff Johnson , Graduate Student in the Olshausen Lab, receives a travel grant to the 2002 Gordon Research Conference on Natural Scene Statistics. Cyndi Mills-Schumann and Christopher Petkov, Graduate Students in the Amaral and Sutter Labs, receive Pre-doctoral Awards from the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute. Phil Washbourne, Postdoctoral Fellow in the McAllister Lab, receives a Postdoctoral Award from the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute to study the role of Fragile X mental retardation protein in synapse formation and plasticity. Shasta Sabo, Postdoctoral Fellow in the McAllister Lab, receives a National Research Service Award to study formation of the presynaptic terminal in the developing cerebral cortex. Candace Floyd, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Berman/Lyeth Labs, receives a National Research Service Award from the N.I.H. Tim Woods, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Recanzone Lab, receives a National Research Service Award from the N.I.H. Adrian Rodriguez-Contreras, Postdoctoral Fellow in the DeBello Lab, receives a Grass fellowship for independent study at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory. He also was recently awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the UNCF-Pfizer Biomedical Research Initiative. Margherita Molnar, Postdoctoral Fellow in Jones Lab, receives a NARSAD award. Faculty The Society for Neuroscience awarded the prestigious Young Investigator Award to Kim McAllister. Karen Zito is the recipient of a Burroughs-Wellcome Fund Career Award. The award is granted to deserving scholars to "foster the development and productivity of biomedical researchers early in their careers." Edward G. Jones is elected a member to the National Academy of Sciences. Will DeBello receives the Presidential Early Career Award. This award for exceptional scientific promise was bestowed at a ceremony at the White House in Summer 2004. Marty Usrey also received this award in 2002. Hwai-Jong Cheng receives a Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award in 2004. Leah Krubitzer was a past recipient of this award. Hwai-Jong Cheng receives a Klingenstein Fellowship Award in 2004. Past recipients of this award include Marty Usrey and Gregg Recanzone. Jim Trimmer receives an Javits Neuroscience Investigator (MERIT) Award as an honor from NIH in 2000. Marie Burns has become the first Edward G. Jones scholar at the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience. Marty Usrey receives McKnight Scholar Award. Hwai-Jong Cheng receives a grant from the Whitehall Foundation. Kimberley McAllister receives a Merck Scholar Award. Phyllis Wise receives a Women in Endocrinology Mentor Award from the Endocrine Society. Seymore Levine receives a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Psychoneuroimmunology. This award was in recognition of over 4 decades of research in developmental psychobiology. Marie Burns receives an E. Matilda Ziegler Foundation for the Blind Research Award Marty Usrey receives Charles Judson Herrick Award from the American Association of Anatomists. Marie Burns is awarded Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowships. Previous Sloan Fellows in the Neuroscience Graduate Program include Marty Usrey , Kimberley McAllister, Mitch Sutter , Brian Mulloney , and Gregg Recanzone. Ken Britten is awarded a collaborative Human Frontiers Grant for research on "Dynamic tuning in visual motion and depth processing". Marie Burns and Will DeBello both receive Faculty Research Awards from UC Davis. Marty Usrey receives an Esther A. and Joseph Klingenstein Research Award for the Neurosciences to study the functional properties neural circuits for vision. Previous recipients of the Klingenstein award include Gregg Recanzone. Charan Ranganath receives the Fourth Samuel Sutton Award for Early Distinguished Scientific Contribution to Human ERPs and Cognition. Kimberley McAllister receives a Pew Scholar's Award in the biomedical sciences to do research on the molecular mechanisms of cortical development. Previous Pew Scholars include Ken Britten. Linda Hall receives a MERIT Award from the NIH for her research on the molecular genetics and functional analysis of voltage sensitive ion channels. Other recipients of MERIT awards include Jack Werner and Phyllis Wise. Kimberley McAllister, is awarded the Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Award from the March of Dimes to study the molecular mechanisms of synapse formation in the developing cerebral cortex. Bill Jagust, Chair of the Neurology Department, successfully renews NIH funding for the Alzheimer's Research Center for 5 years at a total level of approximately $6 million. The goals of the center are to develop and follow a cohort of individuals with Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment, continue our brain bank, and develop new neuroimaging methods. Leo Chalupa, Chair of the Section of Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior, leads a Vision Core Grant from the NIH. This grant brings together more than 20 vision scientists at UC Davis with at least 13 NIH grants from the National Eye Institute. Edward Jones, Director Center for Neuroscience, receives a $2 million award from the W.M. Keck Foundation for a cellular and molecular imaging program. Edward Jones, Director of the Center for Neuroscience, becomes a founder member of the ISI Thompson Scientific, Highly Cited Scientists Database as one of the 100 most-cited neuroscientists in the world. Edward Jones, Director of the Center for Neuroscience, receives Henry Gray Award, the highest award offered by the American Association of Anatomists . Edward Jones, Director of the Center for Neuroscience, receives the Karl Spencer Lashley Award of the American Philosophical Society.