Biomedical Frontiers: Winter 1995, Vol.2, No.2
New NIMH Center

The National Institute of Mental Health awarded Columbia University a five-year, approximately $6 million grant last fall to establish a Center for Neuroscience Research. Headed by Dr. Eric Kandel, University Professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute senior investigator, the center is focused around the following two questions: What molecular mechanisms contribute to learning? Do learning and development share common strategies and genes?

Capitalizing on Columbia's strength in basic science, particularly in transgenic biology, in the developmental biology of the nervous system, in the molecular biology of signal transduction, and in the neurobiology of synaptic plasticity and behavior, the new center hopes to create a bridge between molecular biology and higher mental processes such as learning and memory.

Genetic approaches, including transgenic animals and gene transfer methodology, will be key to the study of how individual genes control development, behavior, and learning in mammals. Center researchers will study how changes produced by individual genes are reflected in behavior by examining neuronal circuitry, the circuitry's signaling and plastic capabilities, and the circuitry's ability to be modified by experience.

The Center faculty consists of Eric Kandel, director; Richard Axel, co-director; Thomas Jessell; Argiris Efstratiadis; Franklin Costantini; Steven Siegelbaum; Jane Dodd; Craig Bailey; and Robert Hawkins.

Tissue plasminogen activator mRNA (yellow) in long-term potentiation studies in the hippocampus.