Mayford, Mark Scripps
<p>Feb 28, 2013 08:27 PM  he lectured today at Clark and we chatted for 15 mins after.
 
<a href="mailto:mmayford@scripps.edu">mmayford@scripps.edu</a>
 
Assoc Prof  Dept of Molec and Cellular Neurosci
 
bs biochem  U Wisc Madison  1983.  now about age 50 .
 
The ability to remember is perhaps the most significant and distinctive feature of our cognitive life. We are who we are in large part because of<b> what we have learned and what we remember</b>. Impairments in learning and memory are a component of disorders that affect human beings throughout life, from childhood forms of mental retardation to psychiatric disorders like Schizophrenia with onsets in late adolescence and early adulthood to diseases of aging such as Alzheimer's. My lab uses <b>genetic manipulation in mice</b> to investigate the molecular events that are involved in learning and memory. We choose this approach for the following reasons: 1) although many of the cognitive disorders in humans have a major genetic component, it has been difficult in many cases to determine the causative genes. 2) Of the genetically accessible experimental organisms, mice are the most similar to humans in both genetic makeup and brain structure so that insights gained in the mouse are likely to be applicable to humans. 3) Understanding the genes involved in a process can identify molecular targets that might be amenable to therapeutic intervention.
 
note paper with Eric Kandel  Genet. Approaches to Memory Storage in 1999 in TIGS
 
see research page:
 
body generates free radicals these toxic molecs contrib to cell decline and death of neurons.
he wants to find cells that are resistant to free radical damage.
 
Pubs:  titles:  
 
 
 
 
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