Zachary Mainen

Last updated

Zachary F. Mainen (born 20 February 1969, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America) is an American neuroscientist whose research focuses on the brain mechanisms of decision-making. [1] [2]

Zachary Mainen moved to Lisbon, Portugal in 2007 and has been the Director of the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme (CNP) at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown in Lisbon, Portugal, since 2009. [2] He is also leader of the Systems Neuroscience Lab [3] and is the founding director of the International Doctoral Neuroscience Programme (INDP). [1]

Biography

Zachary Mainen studied psychology and philosophy at Yale University, received his doctorate in Neuroscience from the University of California, San Diego, and held a faculty position at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York, before moving to Lisbon to found the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme. [2] [4] [5]

His work has been recognized by the Advanced Investigator Grant of the European Research Council [6] and the election to the European Molecular Biology Organization. [7]

Mainen’s research explores brain function, especially decision-making, using theory-driven experimental approaches. His laboratory [3] helped to pioneer the use of quantitative behavioral paradigms in rodents and combines those approaches with electrophysiological, optical and genetic techniques to study neural representation and computation. He has a long-standing interest in the issue of how noise and uncertainty impact neural systems and behavior and our understanding of these processes. His lab is currently exploring these questions in the context of odor-guided perceptual decisions and learning, the timing and selection of simple actions, and the role of the neuromodulator serotonin in behavior and cortical function. This work touches on philosophical issues surrounding causality, free will, knowledge and belief. [2]

He is a member of the Editorial Board for Current Biology . [8]

Related Research Articles

Neuroscience Scientific study of the nervous system

Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developmental biology, cytology, computer science and mathematical modeling to understand the fundamental and emergent properties of neurons, glia and neural circuits. The understanding of the biological basis of learning, memory, behavior, perception, and consciousness has been described by Eric Kandel as the "epic challenge" of the biological sciences.

Neuroscientist Individual who studies neuroscience

A neuroscientist is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, neural circuits, and glial cells and especially their behavioral, biological, and psychological aspect in health and disease.

Systems neuroscience is a subdiscipline of neuroscience and systems biology that studies the structure and function of neural circuits and systems. Systems neuroscience encompasses a number of areas of study concerned with how nerve cells behave when connected together to form neural pathways, neural circuits, and larger brain networks. At this level of analysis, neuroscientists study how different neural circuits analyze sensory information, form perceptions of the external world, make decisions, and execute movements. Researchers in systems neuroscience are concerned with the relation between molecular and cellular approaches to understanding brain structure and function, as well as with the study of high-level mental functions such as language, memory, and self-awareness. Systems neuroscientists typically employ techniques for understanding networks of neurons as they are seen to function, by way of electrophysiology using either single-unit recording or multi-electrode recording, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and PET scans. The term is commonly used in an educational framework: a common sequence of graduate school neuroscience courses consists of cellular/molecular neuroscience for the first semester, then systems neuroscience for the second semester. It is also sometimes used to distinguish a subdivision within a neuroscience department in a university.

Neuroinformatics is the field that combines informatics and neuroscience. Neuroinformatics is related with neuroscience data and information processing by artificial neural networks. There are three main directions where neuroinformatics has to be applied:

The Pennington Biomedical Research Center is a health science-focused research center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It is part of the Louisiana State University System and conducts clinical, basic, and population science research. It is the largest academically-based nutrition research center in the world, with the greatest number of obesity researchers on faculty. The center's over 500 employees occupy several buildings on the 222-acre (0.90 km2) campus. The center was designed by the Baton Rouge architect John Desmond.

Science and technology in Portugal Overview of science and technology in Portugal

Science and technology in Portugal is mainly conducted within a network of research and development (R&D) units belonging to public universities and state-managed autonomous research institutions. There are also non-state-run research institutions and some private R&D projects developed by companies.

Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology

The Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC) is a nonprofit research institute founded in 1990, aiming to foster research in biomedicine and biotechnology and multidisciplinary graduate teaching at the University of Coimbra. CNC was the first established “Laboratório Associado” in Portugal, and it has steadily increased the scope of scientific competences over the years, with a strong focus on the exploitation of the fundamental mechanisms of ageing and brain diseases.

Tania Singer German neuroscientist

Tania Singer is a German psychologist and social neuroscientist and is scientific head of the Social Neuroscience Lab of the Max Planck Society in Berlin, Germany. Between 2007 and 2010, she was Inaugural Chair of Social Neuroscience and Neuroeconomics and Co-Director of the Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research in Zürich. Her research focuses on the developmental, neuronal, and hormonal mechanisms underlying human social behavior and social emotions such as compassion and empathy. She is founder and principal investigator of the ReSource project, one of the largest longitudinal studies on the effects of mental training on brain plasticity as well as mental and physical health, co-funded by the European Research Council. She further holds a cooperation with the macro-economist Dennis Snower on the topic of Caring Economics. Singer's Caring Economics: Conversations on Altruism and Compassion, Between Scientists, Economists, and the Dalai Lama was published in 2015. She is the daughter of the neuroscientist Wolf Singer.

William Thomas Newsome is a neuroscientist at Stanford University who works to "understand the neuronal processes that mediate visual perception and visually guided behavior." He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Neuromanagement uses cognitive neuroscience, among other life science fields, and technology to analyze economic and managerial issues. It focuses on exploring human brain activities and mental processes when people are faced with typical problems of economics and management. This research provides insight into human decision-making and other general social behavior. The main research areas include decision neuroscience, neuroeconomics, neuromarketing, neuro-industrial engineering, and neuro-information systems. Neuromanagement was first proposed in 2006 by Professor Qingguo Ma, the director of Neuromanagement Laboratory of Zhejiang University.

Princeton Neuroscience Institute

The Princeton Neuroscience Institute (PNI) is a center for neuroscience research at Princeton University. Founded in the spring of 2004, the PNI serves as a "stimulus for teaching and research in neuroscience and related fields" and "places particular emphasis on the close connection between theory, modeling, and experimentation using the most advanced technologies." It often partners with Princeton University's departments of Psychology and Molecular Biology.

Darcy Brisbane Kelley, Ph.D., is an American neurobiologist and currently a Weintraub and HHMI Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University. She is also Co-Director of Columbia’s Graduate Program in Neurobiology and Behavior and Editor of Developmental Neurobiology, and well known for her contributions to neuroethology, particularly the neural control of vocalization in Xenopus and the cellular and molecular mechanisms of sexually differentiated acoustic communication.

Herwig Baier

Herwig Baier is a German neurobiologist with dual German and US-American citizenship. He is Director at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology and head of the department Genes – Circuits – Behavior. Herwig Baier's research aims to understand how animal brains convert sensory inputs into behavioral responses.

International Brain Laboratory

The International Brain Laboratory (IBL) is a collaborative research group that aims to develop the first global model of decision making in mice. In its first phase, IBL members are recording 100,000's of neurons across virtually all brain structures in mice performing the very same decision. IBL was officially launched in September 2017 thanks to a $10 million grant from Simons Foundation and a £10 million grant from the Wellcome Trust.

Gregory Stephen Xavier Edward Jefferis is a British neuroscientist known for his work on the circuit basis of olfactory perception in the vinegar fly, Drosophila melanogaster. He is a tenured Programme Leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge (UK) and associated with the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge.

HollisT. Cline is the Hahn Professor of Neuroscience, Chair of the Neuroscience Department and Director of the Dorris Neuroscience Center at the Scripps Research Institute in California. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was awarded the Society for Neuroscience Mika Salpeter Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019. Cline is known for her studies of how sensory experience affects brain development and plasticity.

Megan Carey Neuroscientist

Megan Carey is a neuroscientist and Group Leader of the Neural Circuits and Behavior Laboratory at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown in Lisbon, Portugal. She is known for her work on how the cerebellum controls coordinated movement.

Alexandre Pouget is a full Professor at the University of Geneva in the department of basic neurosciences.

Lindsay M. De Biase American neuroscientist

Lindsay M. De Biase is an American neuroscientist and glial biologist as well as an assistant professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. De Biase explores the diversity of microglia that exist within the basal ganglia circuitry to one day target regional or circuit-specific microglia in disease. De Biase's graduate work highlighted the existence and roles of neuron-OPC synapses in development and her postdoctoral work was critical in showing that microglia are not homogenous within the brain parenchyma.


Diana Prata is a Portuguese neuroscientist who concentrates on identifying the biological basis of human behaviour. She reported the first evidence that schizophrenia-risk genes can also predispose to bipolar disorder and has also investigated reasons why people respond differently to antipsychotic medications. She is head of the Biomedical Neuroscience Lab at the University of Lisbon.

References

  1. 1 2 "International Doctoral Neuroscience Programme" . Retrieved 6 July 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme] (CNP)". Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
  3. 1 2 "Systems Neuroscience Lab". Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
  4. "Yale man in demand". Bangor Daily News. May 29, 1991. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
  5. "Seeking A Place For Portugal Among World's Scientific Elite". Kentucky New Era. 6 June 2008. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
  6. European Research Council
  7. European Molecular Biology Organization
  8. "Cell Press: Current Biology".

[1] Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme website