Carol Mason

Last updated
Carol Mason
Born
Carol Ann Mason
Alma mater Chatham University (BS)
University of California, Berkeley (PhD)
Awards Member of the National Academy of Sciences (2018)
Scientific career
Institutions Columbia University
New York University
Thesis Studies on arthropod neurons: I. Axonal transport in a crayfish neuron. II. Visualization of neurosecretory pathways in the locust  (1973)
Website www.pathology.columbia.edu/profile/carol-mason-phd

Carol Ann Mason is a Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology at Columbia University in the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. She studies axon guidance in visual pathways in an effort to restore vision to the blind. [1] Her research focuses on the retinal ganglion cell. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2018. [2]

Contents

Early life and education

Mason earned her bachelor's degree at Chatham University and graduated in 1967. [3] [4] Mason earned her doctorate in invertebrate zoology and endocrinology at University of California, Berkeley. [5] She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. [6] In 1967 she was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Foundation Fellowship. [6]

Research and career

Mason was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Chicago. She worked with Ray Guillery on the cellular anatomy of the visual systems of cats. [5] She joined the New York University School of Medicine in 1980. [5]

Mason was appointed to the faculty at Columbia University in 1987. [5] She co-directs the Neurobiology and Behaviour program and the National Institutes of Health Vision Sciences training program. [7] Mason studies the role of transcriptional regulators and guidance mechanisms in the mammalian visual system. [8] In particular, she studies the retinal ganglion cell, which connects the eye to the thalamus, which act as sensory relay stations. [9] Half of the retinal ganglion cells send information to one side of the thalamus, whereas the other half send information to the other side. Mason studies how these axons know whether or not to cross over the optical chiasm. [9] To understand how this happens, Mason used a camera lucida to trace out the axons at the root of retinal ganglion cells. [10] Mason focussed on the tips of the axons, and found that most extend across the same side of their brains as where they start. [10] Mason identified that when one type of retinal ganglion cell reaches this chiasm, molecules bind to receptors that prevent them from crossing over, whereas the other type does not. [9]

Mason makes studies of mutated genes in mice. She also applies chemical labels to the retinal ganglion cells to monitor them in the brain. She uses high resolution imaging to create three-dimensional rendering of the axons. [9] She is applying her understanding to the albino visual system, where there is a lack of pigment that can lead to visual impairments. [10] [11] Visual impairments occur due to misrouting of retinal fibres at the optical chiasm, connecting them to contralateral not ipsilateral targets. She is investigating how the melanogenic pathway from the retinal pigment epithelium impacts retinal patterning. [12] She is studying how gene activity can transform stem cells into retinal ganglion cells which could be used for restoring vision.

Mason serves as an editor of the journals eLife , Current Opinion in Neurology and Neural Development . [13] [14] [15] As President of the Society for Neuroscience, Mason called for action on improving diversity within the neuroscience community. [16]

Awards and honours

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Retina</span> Part of the eye

The retina is the innermost, light-sensitive layer of tissue of the eye of most vertebrates and some molluscs. The optics of the eye create a focused two-dimensional image of the visual world on the retina, which then processes that image within the retina and sends nerve impulses along the optic nerve to the visual cortex to create visual perception. The retina serves a function which is in many ways analogous to that of the film or image sensor in a camera.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Optic chiasm</span> Part of the brain where the optic nerves cross

In neuroanatomy, the optic chiasm, or optic chiasma, is the part of the brain where the optic nerves cross. It is located at the bottom of the brain immediately inferior to the hypothalamus. The optic chiasm is found in all vertebrates, although in cyclostomes, it is located within the brain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Optic nerve</span> Second cranial nerve, which connects the eyes to the brain

In neuroanatomy, the optic nerve, also known as the second cranial nerve, cranial nerve II, or simply CN II, is a paired cranial nerve that transmits visual information from the retina to the brain. In humans, the optic nerve is derived from optic stalks during the seventh week of development and is composed of retinal ganglion cell axons and glial cells; it extends from the optic disc to the optic chiasma and continues as the optic tract to the lateral geniculate nucleus, pretectal nuclei, and superior colliculus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Visual system</span> Body parts responsible for vision

The visual system is the physiological basis of visual perception. The system detects, transduces and interprets information concerning light within the visible range to construct an image and build a mental model of the surrounding environment. The visual system is associated with the eye and functionally divided into the optical system and the neural system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sensory nervous system</span> Part of the nervous system

The sensory nervous system is a part of the nervous system responsible for processing sensory information. A sensory system consists of sensory neurons, neural pathways, and parts of the brain involved in sensory perception and interoception. Commonly recognized sensory systems are those for vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell, balance and visceral sensation. Sense organs are transducers that convert data from the outer physical world to the realm of the mind where people interpret the information, creating their perception of the world around them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photoreceptor cell</span> Type of neuroepithelial cell

A photoreceptor cell is a specialized type of neuroepithelial cell found in the retina that is capable of visual phototransduction. The great biological importance of photoreceptors is that they convert light into signals that can stimulate biological processes. To be more specific, photoreceptor proteins in the cell absorb photons, triggering a change in the cell's membrane potential.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Retinal ganglion cell</span> Type of cell within the eye

A retinal ganglion cell (RGC) is a type of neuron located near the inner surface of the retina of the eye. It receives visual information from photoreceptors via two intermediate neuron types: bipolar cells and retina amacrine cells. Retina amacrine cells, particularly narrow field cells, are important for creating functional subunits within the ganglion cell layer and making it so that ganglion cells can observe a small dot moving a small distance. Retinal ganglion cells collectively transmit image-forming and non-image forming visual information from the retina in the form of action potential to several regions in the thalamus, hypothalamus, and mesencephalon, or midbrain.

Intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs), also called photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (pRGC), or melanopsin-containing retinal ganglion cells (mRGCs), are a type of neuron in the retina of the mammalian eye. The presence of ipRGCs was first suspected in 1927 when rodless, coneless mice still responded to a light stimulus through pupil constriction, This implied that rods and cones are not the only light-sensitive neurons in the retina. Yet research on these cells did not advance until the 1980s. Recent research has shown that these retinal ganglion cells, unlike other retinal ganglion cells, are intrinsically photosensitive due to the presence of melanopsin, a light-sensitive protein. Therefore, they constitute a third class of photoreceptors, in addition to rod and cone cells.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Retinotopy</span> Mapping of visual input from the retina to neurons

Retinotopy is the mapping of visual input from the retina to neurons, particularly those neurons within the visual stream. For clarity, 'retinotopy' can be replaced with 'retinal mapping', and 'retinotopic' with 'retinally mapped'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bipolar neuron</span> Neuron with only one axon and one dendrite

A bipolar neuron, or bipolar cell, is a type of neuron characterized by having both an axon and a dendrite extending from the soma in opposite directions. These neurons are predominantly found in the retina and olfactory system. The embryological period encompassing weeks seven through eight marks the commencement of bipolar neuron development. Many bipolar cells are specialized sensory neurons for the transmission of sense. As such, they are part of the sensory pathways for smell, sight, taste, hearing, touch, balance and proprioception. The other shape classifications of neurons include unipolar, pseudounipolar and multipolar. During embryonic development, pseudounipolar neurons begin as bipolar in shape but become pseudounipolar as they mature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Retinohypothalamic tract</span> Neural pathway involved with circadian rhythms

In neuroanatomy, the retinohypothalamic tract (RHT) is a photic neural input pathway involved in the circadian rhythms of mammals. The origin of the retinohypothalamic tract is the intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGC), which contain the photopigment melanopsin. The axons of the ipRGCs belonging to the retinohypothalamic tract project directly, monosynaptically, to the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) via the optic nerve and the optic chiasm. The suprachiasmatic nuclei receive and interpret information on environmental light, dark and day length, important in the entrainment of the "body clock". They can coordinate peripheral "clocks" and direct the pineal gland to secrete the hormone melatonin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carla J. Shatz</span> American neuroscientist

Carla J. Shatz is an American neurobiologist and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Medicine.

Visual perception is the ability to interpret the surrounding environment through photopic vision, color vision, scotopic vision, and mesopic vision, using light in the visible spectrum reflected by objects in the environment. This is different from visual acuity, which refers to how clearly a person sees. A person can have problems with visual perceptual processing even if they have 20/20 vision.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parasol cell</span>

A parasol cell, sometimes called an M cell or M ganglion cell, is one type of retinal ganglion cell (RGC) located in the ganglion cell layer of the retina. These cells project to magnocellular cells in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) as part of the magnocellular pathway in the visual system. They have large cell bodies as well as extensive branching dendrite networks and as such have large receptive fields. Relative to other RGCs, they have fast conduction velocities. While they do show clear center-surround antagonism, they receive no information about color. Parasol ganglion cells contribute information about the motion and depth of objects to the visual system.

Christine Elizabeth Holt FRS, FMedSci is a British developmental neuroscientist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">King-Wai Yau</span> Chinese-American neuroscientist

King-Wai Yau is a Chinese-born American neuroscientist and Professor of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.

Marla Beth Feller is the Paul Licht Distinguished Professor in Biological Sciences and Member of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. She studies the mechanisms that underpin the assembly of neural circuits during development. Feller is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and member of the National Academy of Sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura Busse</span> German neuroscientist

Laura Busse is a German neuroscientist and professor of Systemic Neuroscience within the Division of Neurobiology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Busse's lab studies context-dependent visual processing in mouse models by performing large scale in vivo electrophysiological recordings in the thalamic and cortical circuits of awake and behaving mice.

Rachel Wong is an American neuroscientist who is a professor of Biological Structure at the University of Washington. She studies the developmental mechanisms that determine synaptic connectivity in the central nervous system. She was elected to the National Vision Research Institute of Australia in 2018 and the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.

Tiffany M. Schmidt is an American researcher and chronobiologist, currently working as an associate professor of Neurobiology at Northwestern University. Schmidt, who works in Evanston, Illinois, studies the role of retinal ganglion cells (RGC) to determine how light can affect behavior, hormonal changes, vision, sleep, and circadian entrainment.

References

  1. ↑ Plump, Andrew S.; Erskine, Lynda; Sabatier, Christelle; Brose, Katja; Epstein, Charles J.; Goodman, Corey S.; Mason, Carol A.; Tessier-Lavigne, Marc (2002). "Slit1 and Slit2 Cooperate to Prevent Premature Midline Crossing of Retinal Axons in the Mouse Visual System". Neuron. 33 (2): 219–232. doi: 10.1016/S0896-6273(01)00586-4 . ISSN   0896-6273. PMID   11804570.
  2. 1 2 "Dr. Carol Mason Elected to National Academy of Sciences". Pathology. 2018-05-02. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  3. ↑ "Alumna Carol Mason '67 Elected to National Academy of Sciences". Pulse @ ChathamU. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  4. ↑ "Current Members". Mason-Dodd Lab. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "Loop | Carol Mason". loop.frontiersin.org. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  6. 1 2 "Carol Mason - F1000Prime". f1000.com. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  7. ↑ "Carol Mason | Presidential Scholars". presidentialscholars.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  8. 1 2 "Dr. Carol Mason Honored with the 2017 Mika Salpeter Lifetime Achievement Award". Pathology. 2017-11-22. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  9. 1 2 3 4 "Carol Mason". zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu. 2017-03-06. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  10. 1 2 3 "Columbia's Carol Mason Elected to National Academy of Sciences for Pioneering Research into Brain Science of Sight". Columbia University Zuckerman Institute. 2018-05-24. Retrieved 2023-02-23.
  11. ↑ Participant Biographies. National Academies Press (US). 2015-08-26.
  12. ↑ "Carol A. Mason, PhD | DEPARTMENT OF NEUROSCIENCE". neuroscience.columbia.edu. Archived from the original on 2020-12-25. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  13. ↑ "Editors for Neuroscience". eLife. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  14. ↑ "ScienceDirect". www.sciencedirect.com. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  15. ↑ "Neural Development". Neural Development. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  16. 1 2 "Message from the President: Women in Neuroscience: A Call to Action". www.sfn.org. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  17. ↑ "AAAS Fellows 2006" (PDF). AAAS. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  18. ↑ "Simons Society of Fellows". Simons Foundation. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  19. ↑ "Vision award". first.fchampalimaud.org. Archived from the original on 2020-04-12. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
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