Marina Rachel Picciotto | |
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![]() Marina Picciotto at Yale University in 2017 | |
Born | Bloomington, Indiana, U.S. | June 22, 1963
Alma mater | |
Known for | Nicotinic receptors |
Awards |
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Scientific career | |
Fields | Neuroscience |
Institutions | Yale University |
Doctoral advisor | Paul Greengard |
Other academic advisors | Jean-Pierre Changeux, Richard Scheller |
Website | psychiatry |
Marina Rachel Picciotto (born June 22, 1963) is an American neuroscientist known for her work on the role of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in addiction, memory, and reward behaviors. She is the Charles B. G. Murphy Professor of Psychiatry and professor in the Child Study Center and the Departments of Neuroscience and of Pharmacology at the Yale University School of Medicine. [1] She was named Director of the Yale University Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program in September 2023. [2] From 2015-2023, she was editor-in-chief of the Journal of Neuroscience . She is currently President of the Society for Neuroscience [3]
Born in Bloomington, Indiana on June 22, 1963, Picciotto moved to New York City as an infant and graduated from Hunter College High School in 1981. Picciotto received her B.S. in biology from Stanford University in 1985, and her Ph.D. in 1992 from Rockefeller University. She carried out post-doctoral work at the Pasteur Institute in Paris from 1992-1995.
Picciotto began her career in neuroscience as an undergraduate researcher at Stanford University, where she worked with Richard Scheller. There she discovered that the FMRFamide gene gives rise to multiple copies of the neuropeptide. [4] She went on to PhD work with Paul Greengard at Rockefeller University where she cloned the gene for calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase 1 [5] As a Human Frontier Science Program postdoctoral fellow with Jean-Pierre Changeux at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, Picciotto produced the first mouse knock-out lacking a nicotinic receptor subunit. [6] She returned to the United States in 1995 to join the Yale University faculty as an assistant professor and rising through the ranks to become the Charles B.G. Murphy Professor in Psychiatry in 2008. Her group is known for its discoveries in nicotine addiction and brain circuits. Recent work from Picciotto showed that pre-natal exposure to nicotine has profound effects on adult behavior. [7] In press interviews, she has expressed concerns about the use of e-cigarettes and low-dose nicotine cigarettes. [8]
In 2015, Picciotto was named editor-in-chief of The Journal of Neuroscience . After taking over leadership at the journal, she instituted a number of changes including eliminating submission fees for Society for Neuroscience members [9] and restoring the ability of authors to publish supplementary data alongside their papers. [10] Picciotto has also instituted new controls on statistical analysis and experimental design reporting. [11] In a move to support pre-print publishing, Picciotto added The Journal of Neuroscience to the list of journals that will accept submissions directly from bioRxiv. [12] She also started initiatives on social media to thank scientists who participated in peer review at the journal. [13]
President Bill Clinton presented Picciotto with the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers at the White House in 2000. [14] She received the Jacob P. Waletzky Memorial Award for Innovative Research in Drug Addiction and Alcohol Research from The Society for Neuroscience in 2007. [15] Picciotto was elected as an AAAS fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2014, [16] and was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2012. [17] In 2019, Picciotto was among 11 scientists awarded the National Institutes of Health’s Pioneer Award. [18] [19] That same year, she was awarded the Bernice Grafstein award for advancing the careers of women in neuroscience. [20] She received the Andrew Carnegie Prize for Mind and Brain Science in 2020 [21] and she was awarded the Langley Award for Basic Research on Nicotine and Tobacco in 2021. [22] Picciotto was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2024 for her work in the field of neuroscience. [23]
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Orexin, also known as hypocretin, is a neuropeptide that regulates arousal, wakefulness, and appetite. It exists in the forms of orexin-A and orexin-B. The most common form of narcolepsy, type 1, in which the individual experiences brief losses of muscle tone, is caused by a lack of orexin in the brain due to destruction of the cells that produce it.
Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, or nAChRs, are receptor polypeptides that respond to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Nicotinic receptors also respond to drugs such as the agonist nicotine. They are found in the central and peripheral nervous system, muscle, and many other tissues of many organisms. At the neuromuscular junction they are the primary receptor in muscle for motor nerve-muscle communication that controls muscle contraction. In the peripheral nervous system: (1) they transmit outgoing signals from the presynaptic to the postsynaptic cells within the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, and (2) they are the receptors found on skeletal muscle that receive acetylcholine released to signal for muscular contraction. In the immune system, nAChRs regulate inflammatory processes and signal through distinct intracellular pathways. In insects, the cholinergic system is limited to the central nervous system.
Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is a 36 amino-acid neuropeptide that is involved in various physiological and homeostatic processes in both the central and peripheral nervous systems. It is secreted alongside other neurotransmitters such as GABA and glutamate.
Jean-Pierre Changeux is a French neuroscientist known for his research in several fields of biology, from the structure and function of proteins, to the early development of the nervous system up to cognitive functions. Although being famous in biological sciences for the MWC model, the identification and purification of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor and the theory of epigenesis by synapse selection are also notable scientific achievements. Changeux is known by the non-scientific public for his ideas regarding the connection between mind and physical brain. As put forth in his book, Conversations on Mind, Matter and Mathematics, Changeux strongly supports the view that the nervous system functions in a projective rather than reactive style and that interaction with the environment, rather than being instructive, results in the selection amongst a diversity of preexisting internal representations.
The habenula is a small bilateral neuronal structure in the brain of vertebrates, that has also been called a microstructure since it is no bigger than a pea. The naming as little rein describes its elongated shape in the epithalamus, where it borders the third ventricle, and lies in front of the pineal gland.
Neuromodulation is the physiological process by which a given neuron uses one or more chemicals to regulate diverse populations of neurons. Neuromodulators typically bind to metabotropic, G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) to initiate a second messenger signaling cascade that induces a broad, long-lasting signal. This modulation can last for hundreds of milliseconds to several minutes. Some of the effects of neuromodulators include: altering intrinsic firing activity, increasing or decreasing voltage-dependent currents, altering synaptic efficacy, increasing bursting activity and reconfigurating synaptic connectivity.
Calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase type II subunit alpha (CAMKIIα), a.k.a.Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II alpha, is one subunit of CamKII, a protein kinase (i.e., an enzyme which phosphorylates proteins) that in humans is encoded by the CAMK2A gene.
Peripheral plasma membrane protein CASK is a protein that in humans is encoded by the CASK gene. This gene is also known by several other names: CMG 2, calcium/calmodulin-dependent serine protein kinase 3 and membrane-associated guanylate kinase 2. CASK gene mutations are the cause of XL-ID with or without nystagmus and MICPCH, an X-linked neurological disorder.
VGF or VGF nerve growth factor inducible is a secreted protein and neuropeptide precursor that may play a role in regulating energy homeostasis, metabolism and synaptic plasticity. The protein was first discovered in 1985 by Levi et al. in an experiment with PC12 cells and its name is non-acronymic. VGF gene encodes a precursor which is divided by proteolysis to polypeptides of different mass, which have a variety of functions, the best studied of which are the roles of TLQP-21 in the control of appetite and inflammation, and TLQP-62 as well as AQEE-30 in regulating depression-like behaviors and memory. The expression of VGF and VGF-derived peptides is detected in a subset of neurons in the central and peripheral nervous systems and specific populations of endocrine cells in the adenohypophysis, adrenal medulla, gastrointestinal tract, and pancreas. VGF expression is induced by NGF, CREB and BDNF and regulated by neurotrophin-3. Physical exercise significantly increases VGF expression in mice hippocampal tissue and upregulates a neurotrophic signaling cascade thought to underlie the action of antidepressants.
Calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase kinase 2 is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the CAMKK2 gene.
A serenic, or antiaggressive agent, is a type of drug which reduces the capacity for irritability and aggression.
PNU-120596 is a drug that acts as a potent and selective positive allosteric modulator for the α7 subtype of neural nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. It is used in scientific research into cholinergic regulation of dopamine and glutamate release in the brain.
Thomas S. Kilduff is an American neuroscientist and the director of SRI International's Center for Neuroscience. He specializes in neurobiology related to sleep and wakefulness, and was involved in the discovery of hypocretin, a neuropeptide system that is highly involved in wakefulness regulation.
Nicolas Le Novère is a British and French biologist. His research focuses on modeling signaling pathways and developing tools to share mathematical models.
Mary Bernadette Kennedy is an American biochemist and neuroscientist. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is the Allen and Lenabelle Davis Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology, where she has been a member of the faculty since 1981. Her research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of synaptic plasticity, the process underlying formation of memory in the central nervous system. Her lab uses biochemical and molecular biological methods to study the protein machinery within a structure called the postsynaptic density. Kennedy has published over 100 papers with over 20,000 total citations.
TLQP-62 (amino acid 556-617) is a VGF-derived C-terminal peptide that was first discovered by Trani et al. TLQP-62 is derived from VGF precursor protein via proteolytic cleavage by prohormone convertases PC1/3 at the RPR555 site. TLQP-62 is named after its first four N-terminal amino acids and its peptide length.
Sarah M. N. Woolley is a neuroscientist and Professor of Psychology at Columbia University's Zuckerman Institute. Her work centers on the neuroscience of communication, using songbirds to understand how the brain learns and understands vocal communication.
Moriel Zelikowsky is a neuroscientist at University of Utah School of Medicine. Her laboratory studies the brain circuits and neural mechanisms underlying stress, fear, and social behavior. Her previous work includes fear and the hippocampus, and the role of neuropeptide Tac2 in social isolation.
Marisa Roberto is an Italian-American neuroscientist and professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine and Neuroscience at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Roberto is recognized for her contributions to the understanding of alcohol addiction, specifically for her research on the effects of alcohol and neuromodulators on synaptic transmission in the central amygdala, a critical addiction-related brain region.
Mary Kay Lobo is an American psychiatric neuroscientist who is a Professor of Neurobiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Her research considers the molecular mechanisms that underpin drug addiction and depression. She was named a finalist in the 2011 Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists.