Wickliffe Abraham

Wickliffe Abraham
Born	1954 (age 70–71) Hagerstown, Maryland, USA
Awards	Rutherford Medal, Royal Society Te Āparangi Marsden Medal, New Zealand Association of Scientists 2022, Fellow, Royal Society of New Zealand 1997
Scientific career
Fields	Neuroscience (Synaptic plasticity, Memory)
Institutions	University of Otago (Professor)

Cliff Abraham is a New Zealand neuroscientist and currently Poutoko Taiea Distinguished Professor, University of Otago. He is known for his work on synaptic plasticity and in particular, the phenomenon of "metaplasticity" (the plasticity of synaptic plasticity processes themselves). He is the 2025 recipient of the Rutherford Medal, ^[1] which is the most prestigious award offered by the Royal Society of New Zealand. He has been formerly head of the Department of Psychology, University of Otago (2003–5), and President of the Australasian Neuroscience Society (2019–20).

Research

Abraham's work has focused on synaptic plasticity, which is the process by which synapses (the connections between neurons) change in strength following certain types of neural activity. The changes are thought to constitute one of the mechanisms of memory formation/storage. He has particularly explored the molecular mechanisms underlying such changes, which have possible implications for memory disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.^{[ citation needed ]}

Education and career

Abraham completed a B.A. in Psychology with Distinction at the University of Virginia.^{[ citation needed ]} He then completed his PhD at the University of Florida in 1981, supervised by Dr Steven Zornetzer and Dr Don Walker, with a thesis entitled An electrophysiological analysis of chronic ethanol effects on synaptic distribution and function in rat hippocampus ^[2] . He undertook postdoctoral work at the University of Otago with Prof Graham Goddard and the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, with Dr Hölger Wigstrom and Dr Bengt Gustafsson in the Department of Physiology.^{[ citation needed ]} In 1986 he returned to the University of Otago where he took up a lectureship (in the Department of Psychology, which was unusual for a neuroscientist at that time), where he has remained, becoming professor in 1998 and Head of department in 2003–5.^{[ citation needed ]} In 1997 he was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, and in 2025 received that organisation's highest research honour, the Rutherford Medal.^{[ citation needed ]}

Achievements and awards

• 2025: Rutherford Medal, Royal Society Te Apārangi
• 2022: Marsden Medal, New Zealand Association of Scientists
• 2009: University of Otago Distinguished Research Medal
• 2007-08: James Cook Fellowship, Royal Society of New Zealand
• 1997: Fellow, Royal Society of New Zealand

Selected publications

• Abraham, Wickliffe C., Jones, Owen D., & Glanzman, David L. (2019). Is plasticity of synapses the mechanism of long-term memory storage? npj Science of Learning, 4, 9.
• Abraham, Wickliffe C. (2008). "Metaplasticity: tuning synapses and networks for plasticity." Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9: 387–399
• Turner, Paul R., O'Connor, Kate, Tate, Warren P., Abraham, Wickliffe C. (2003). Roles of amyloid precursor protein and its fragments in regulating neural activity, plasticity and memory Progress in Neurobiology 70: 1–32
• Abraham, Wickliffe C., & Bear, Mark F. (1996). "Metaplasticity: the plasticity of synaptic plasticity" Trends in Neurosciences 19: 126–130.
• Bear, Mark F., & Abraham, Wickliffe C. (1996). Long-term depression in the hippocampus. Annual Reviews of Neuroscience, 19: 437-462.
• Abraham, Wickliffe C., & Goddard, Graham V. (1983). Asymmetric relations between homosynaptic long-term potentiation and heterosynaptic long-term depression. Nature, 305, 717-719.

References

1. "2025 Rutherford Medal: How the brain makes memories". Royal Society Te Apārangi. Retrieved 22 December 2025.
2. "UF Digital Collections". ufdc.ufl.edu. Retrieved 22 December 2025.

External links

• Google
• NeuroTree