Elizabeth A. Buffalo

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Elizabeth A. Buffalo
Alma materWellesley College; University of California, San Diego
Occupation(s)Professor, University of Washington School of Medicine
AwardsTroland Research Award (2011)

Elizabeth A. Buffalo is the Wayne E. Crill Endowed Professor and Chair of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Washington School of Medicine and chief of the neuroscience division at the Washington National Primate Research Center. She is known for her research in the field of neurophysiology pertaining to the role of the hippocampus and medial temporal lobe structures in learning and memory and in spatial representation and navigation.

Contents

Buffalo received the Troland Research Award from the National Academy of Sciences in 2011 for "innovative, multidisciplinary study of the hippocampus and the neural basis of memory.” [1] She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Caesar, a neuroscience research institute associated with the Max Planck Society, [2] and the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives. [3]

She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022. [4]

Biography

Buffalo attended Wellesley College where she received her bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1992. [5] She completed a research internship in at the National Center for Toxicological Research, Jefferson, Arkansas, where she studies the effects of caffeine and other chemical agents (MK-801) on operant learning in monkeys. [6] [7] Buffalo continued her education at the University of California, San Diego, where she obtained her master's degree in philosophy in 1995, working under the supervision of Patricia Churchland, and her doctorate in neuroscience in 1998, working under the supervision of Stuart Zola and Larry Squire.

Buffalo completed postdoctoral training in neuropsychology at the National Institute of Mental Health, where she worked with Robert Desimone from 1999 to 2005. [5] Buffalo joined the faculty of the department of neurology at the Emory University School of Medicine in 2005 and was appointed to the core faculty of the Division of Neuropharmacology and Neurologic Diseases at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in 2009.

Buffalo moved to the University of Washington School of Medicine in 2013 with a joint appointment to the Division of Neuroscience of the Washington National Primate Research Center. Her research has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, DARPA, the Simons Foundation, [8] the Charles A. Dana Foundation, and Pfizer.

Research

Buffalo uses a variety of research methods to explore the neural basis of learning and memory, including the innovative use of video games to study the process of memory formation in monkeys. [9] One of her goals has been to elucidate the role of the hippocampus in the development of cognitive maps and other forms of spatial representation and its role in episodic and declarative memory. [10] [11] Her collaborative work with other neuroscientists indicates that the hippocampus encodes a broad range of contextual cues, including temporal and situational information, to support memory for events as well as navigation skills. [12]

Some of Buffalo and her colleagues' work used lesion techniques with monkeys to better understand the role of the hippocampus in recognition and declarative memory. [13] Monkeys subjected to lesions caused by ischemic damage, stereotaxic radio-frequency waves, or selective neurotoxins, like ibotenic acid, that took place at the hippocampus demonstrated impairments of recognition memory, as assessed using the visual paired-comparison task and the delayed non-matching to sample task. The authors concluded that the hippocampus play an essential role in recognition memory, with further work addressing how the hippocampus coordinates its function with other structures, especially the perirhinal cortex. [14] [15] Other work on memory function aims is to identify how changes associated with aging or disease can interfere with memory encoding and retrieval, and how visual processing might provide clues to understanding early cognitive impairment. [16]

Representative publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Entorhinal cortex</span> Area of the temporal lobe of the brain

The entorhinal cortex (EC) is an area of the brain's allocortex, located in the medial temporal lobe, whose functions include being a widespread network hub for memory, navigation, and the perception of time. The EC is the main interface between the hippocampus and neocortex. The EC-hippocampus system plays an important role in declarative (autobiographical/episodic/semantic) memories and in particular spatial memories including memory formation, memory consolidation, and memory optimization in sleep. The EC is also responsible for the pre-processing (familiarity) of the input signals in the reflex nictitating membrane response of classical trace conditioning; the association of impulses from the eye and the ear occurs in the entorhinal cortex.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Visual cortex</span> Region of the brain that processes visual information

The visual cortex of the brain is the area of the cerebral cortex that processes visual information. It is located in the occipital lobe. Sensory input originating from the eyes travels through the lateral geniculate nucleus in the thalamus and then reaches the visual cortex. The area of the visual cortex that receives the sensory input from the lateral geniculate nucleus is the primary visual cortex, also known as visual area 1 (V1), Brodmann area 17, or the striate cortex. The extrastriate areas consist of visual areas 2, 3, 4, and 5.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hippocampus</span> Vertebrate brain region involved in memory consolidation

The hippocampus is a major component of the brain of humans and other vertebrates. Humans and other mammals have two hippocampi, one in each side of the brain. The hippocampus is part of the limbic system, and plays important roles in the consolidation of information from short-term memory to long-term memory, and in spatial memory that enables navigation. The hippocampus is located in the allocortex, with neural projections into the neocortex, in humans as well as other primates. The hippocampus, as the medial pallium, is a structure found in all vertebrates. In humans, it contains two main interlocking parts: the hippocampus proper, and the dentate gyrus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Limbic system</span> Set of brain structures involved in emotion and motivation

The limbic system, also known as the paleomammalian cortex, is a set of brain structures located on both sides of the thalamus, immediately beneath the medial temporal lobe of the cerebrum primarily in the forebrain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Temporal lobe</span> One of the four lobes of the mammalian brain

The temporal lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The temporal lobe is located beneath the lateral fissure on both cerebral hemispheres of the mammalian brain.

In neurology, anterograde amnesia is the inability to create new memories after an event that caused amnesia, leading to a partial or complete inability to recall the recent past, while long-term memories from before the event remain intact. This is in contrast to retrograde amnesia, where memories created prior to the event are lost while new memories can still be created. Both can occur together in the same patient. To a large degree, anterograde amnesia remains a mysterious ailment because the precise mechanism of storing memories is not yet well understood, although it is known that the regions of the brain involved are certain sites in the temporal cortex, especially in the hippocampus and nearby subcortical regions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spatial memory</span> Memory about ones environment and spatial orientation

In cognitive psychology and neuroscience, spatial memory is a form of memory responsible for the recording and recovery of information needed to plan a course to a location and to recall the location of an object or the occurrence of an event. Spatial memory is necessary for orientation in space. Spatial memory can also be divided into egocentric and allocentric spatial memory. A person's spatial memory is required to navigate around a familiar city. A rat's spatial memory is needed to learn the location of food at the end of a maze. In both humans and animals, spatial memories are summarized as a cognitive map.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Language processing in the brain</span> How humans use words to communicate

In psycholinguistics, language processing refers to the way humans use words to communicate ideas and feelings, and how such communications are processed and understood. Language processing is considered to be a uniquely human ability that is not produced with the same grammatical understanding or systematicity in even human's closest primate relatives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prefrontal cortex</span> Part of the brain responsible for personality, decision-making, and social behavior

In mammalian brain anatomy, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) covers the front part of the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. It is the association cortex in the frontal lobe. The PFC contains the Brodmann areas BA8, BA9, BA10, BA11, BA12, BA13, BA14, BA24, BA25, BA32, BA44, BA45, BA46, and BA47.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hippocampal formation</span> Region of the temporal lobe in mammalian brains

The hippocampal formation is a compound structure in the medial temporal lobe of the brain. It forms a c-shaped bulge on the floor of the temporal horn of the lateral ventricle. There is no consensus concerning which brain regions are encompassed by the term, with some authors defining it as the dentate gyrus, the hippocampus proper and the subiculum; and others including also the presubiculum, parasubiculum, and entorhinal cortex. The hippocampal formation is thought to play a role in memory, spatial navigation and control of attention. The neural layout and pathways within the hippocampal formation are very similar in all mammals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inferior temporal gyrus</span> One of three gyri of the temporal lobe of the brain

The inferior temporal gyrus is one of three gyri of the temporal lobe and is located below the middle temporal gyrus, connected behind with the inferior occipital gyrus; it also extends around the infero-lateral border on to the inferior surface of the temporal lobe, where it is limited by the inferior sulcus. This region is one of the higher levels of the ventral stream of visual processing, associated with the representation of objects, places, faces, and colors. It may also be involved in face perception, and in the recognition of numbers and words.

The perirhinal cortex is a cortical region in the medial temporal lobe that is made up of Brodmann areas 35 and 36. It receives highly processed sensory information from all sensory regions, and is generally accepted to be an important region for memory. It is bordered caudally by postrhinal cortex or parahippocampal cortex and ventrally and medially by entorhinal cortex.

The rhinal cortex is the cortex surrounding the rhinal fissure, including the entorhinal cortex and the perirhinal cortex. It is a cortical region in the medial temporal lobe that is made up of Brodmann areas 28, 34, 35 and 36.

The neuroanatomy of memory encompasses a wide variety of anatomical structures in the brain.

Recognition memory, a subcategory of explicit memory, is the ability to recognize previously encountered events, objects, or people. When the previously experienced event is reexperienced, this environmental content is matched to stored memory representations, eliciting matching signals. As first established by psychology experiments in the 1970s, recognition memory for pictures is quite remarkable: humans can remember thousands of images at high accuracy after seeing each only once and only for a few seconds.

Amnesia is a deficit in memory caused by brain damage or brain diseases, but it can also be temporarily caused by the use of various sedative and hypnotic drugs. The memory can be either wholly or partially lost due to the extent of damage that is caused.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carol A. Barnes</span> American neuroscientist

Carol A. Barnes is an American neuroscientist who is a Regents' Professor of psychology at the University of Arizona. Since 2006, she has been the Evelyn F. McKnight Chair for Learning and Memory in Aging and is director of the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute. Barnes has been president of the Society for Neuroscience and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and foreign member of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2018.

Neal J. Cohen is a professor of psychology in the Cognitive Neuroscience division of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. He is appointed as a full-time faculty member in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois. He is the founding director of the Center for Nutrition, Learning, and Memory (CNLM), a partnership of the University of Illinois and Abbott Laboratories as of 2011. He is also the founding director of the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Initiative (IHSI) at the University of Illinois, formed 2014.

In psychology, associative memory is defined as the ability to learn and remember the relationship between unrelated items. This would include, for example, remembering the name of someone or the aroma of a particular perfume. This type of memory deals specifically with the relationship between these different objects or concepts. A normal associative memory task involves testing participants on their recall of pairs of unrelated items, such as face-name pairs. Associative memory is a declarative memory structure and episodically based.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wendy Suzuki</span> American neuroscientist

Wendy Suzuki is a Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the New York University Center for Neural Science and popular science communicator. She is the author of Healthy Brain, Happy Life: A Personal Program to Activate Your Brain and Do Everything Better. Since September 1, 2022, she has served as Dean of the New York University College of Arts & Science.

References

  1. ↑ "Troland Research Awards". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
  2. ↑ "Scientific Advisory Board - Members". www.caesar.de. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
  3. ↑ "Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives Elects Fourteen New Members". dana.org. Archived from the original on 2017-12-13. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
  4. ↑ "2022 NAS Election".
  5. 1 2 "Yerkes -- Elizabeth Buffalo, PhD". www.yerkes.emory.edu. Archived from the original on 2020-01-11. Retrieved 2017-11-13.
  6. ↑ Buffalo, Elizabeth A.; Gillam, Michael P.; Allen, Richard R.; Paule, Merle G. (1993). "Acute effects of caffeine on several operant behaviors in rhesus monkeys". Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior. 46 (3): 733–737. doi:10.1016/0091-3057(93)90570-j. PMID   8278453. S2CID   29662198.
  7. ↑ Buffalo, Elizabeth A.; Gillam, Michael P.; Allen, Richard R.; Paule, Merle G. (1994). "Acute behavioral effects of MK-801 in rhesus monkeys: Assessment using an operant test battery". Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior. 48 (4): 935–940. doi:10.1016/0091-3057(94)90203-8. PMID   7972299. S2CID   8892896.
  8. ↑ "Elizabeth A. Buffalo | Simons Foundation". Simons Foundation. 2015-10-22. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
  9. ↑ Wanucha, Genevieve. "Research at the UW Will Improve How Clinicians Help Those with Memory Loss" (PDF). THE KING COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY.
  10. ↑ Killian, Nathaniel J.; Jutras, Michael J.; Buffalo, Elizabeth A. (2012). "A map of visual space in the primate entorhinal cortex". Nature. 491 (7426): 761–764. Bibcode:2012Natur.491..761K. doi:10.1038/nature11587. ISSN   1476-4687. PMC   3565234 . PMID   23103863.
  11. ↑ Buffalo, Elizabeth A.; Bellgowan, Patrick S. F.; Martin, Alex (2006-09-01). "Distinct roles for medial temporal lobe structures in memory for objects and their locations". Learning & Memory. 13 (5): 638–643. doi:10.1101/lm.251906. ISSN   1072-0502. PMC   1783618 . PMID   16980544.
  12. ↑ Schiller, Daniela; Eichenbaum, Howard; Buffalo, Elizabeth A.; Davachi, Lila; Foster, David J.; Leutgeb, Stefan; Ranganath, Charan (2015-10-14). "Memory and Space: Towards an Understanding of the Cognitive Map". Journal of Neuroscience. 35 (41): 13904–13911. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2618-15.2015. ISSN   0270-6474. PMC   6608181 . PMID   26468191.
  13. ↑ Zola, Stuart M.; Squire, Larry R.; Teng, Edmond; Stefanacci, Lisa; Buffalo, Elizabeth A.; Clark, Robert E. (2000-01-01). "Impaired Recognition Memory in Monkeys after Damage Limited to the Hippocampal Region". Journal of Neuroscience. 20 (1): 451–463. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.20-01-00451.2000 . ISSN   0270-6474. PMC   6774137 . PMID   10627621.
  14. ↑ Buffalo, Elizabeth A.; Ramus, Seth J.; Clark, Robert E.; Teng, Edmond; Squire, Larry R.; Zola, Stuart M. (1999-11-01). "Dissociation Between the Effects of Damage to Perirhinal Cortex and Area TE". Learning & Memory. 6 (6): 572–599. doi:10.1101/lm.6.6.572. ISSN   1072-0502. PMC   311316 . PMID   10641763.
  15. ↑ Buffalo, Elizabeth A.; Ramus, Seth J., Squire, Larry R., & Zola, Stuart M. (2000). "Perception and Recognition Memory in Monkeys Following Lesions of Area TE and Perirhinal Cortex". Learning and Memory. 7 (6): 375–382. doi:10.1101/lm.32100. PMC   311353 . PMID   11112796.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  16. ↑ Lagun, Dmitry; Manzanares, Cecelia; Zola, Stuart M.; Buffalo, Elizabeth A.; Agichtein, Eugene (2011). "Detecting cognitive impairment by eye movement analysis using automatic classification algorithms". Journal of Neuroscience Methods. 201 (1): 196–203. doi:10.1016/j.jneumeth.2011.06.027. PMC   3403832 . PMID   21801750.
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