Cognitive Neuroscience

BIOGRAPHY

ACADEMIC POSITION:
Principal Investigator: Suzuki Lab, Center for Neural Science, New York University

EDUCATION:
Dr Wendy A Suzuki received her undergraduate degree in physiology and human anatomy at the University of California, Berkeley in 1987. In the fall of 1987, Suzuki entered the graduate program in Neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego. There, she used anatomical and behavioral techniques to show that two previously unappreciated areas of the brain, the perirhinal and parahippocampal cortices were in fact playing a critical role in our long-term memory abilities. Her discoveries were recognized with the Donald B Lindsley Prize, an annual prize given by the Society for Neuroscience for meritorious doctoral research in the field of behavioral neuroscience.

Dr Suzuki went on to complete a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health in the laboratory of Dr Robert Desimone where she examined the patterns of brain cell activity that underlie memory for objects and spatial locations.

AWARDS:
• Donald B Lindsley Prize
• Troland Research Award from the National Academy of Sciences

RESEARCH INTERESTS:
The major goal the Suzuki Laboratory is to understand the neural signals underlying the formation and representation of declarative/relational memory in the monkey brain. One form of declarative/relational memory we have focused on is associative memory, defined as the ability to associate two unrelated items in memory. We have shown that many cells in the monkey hippocampus signal learning of new associations with dramatic changes in their firing rate (Wirth et al., 2003). Recent functional imaging studies have shown that similar changes in activity are seen in the human medial temporal (Law et al., 2005). We have also shown that hippocampal neurons signal well- learned information with a significantly more selective response compared to novel information (Yanike et al., 2004). Current work is examining how the hippocampus interacts with other brain areas during the associative learning process. Another major goal in the lab is the development of a novel battery of medial temporal lobe-dependent memory tasks to use in our neurophysiological studies. This battery includes tasks of temporal order memory designed to mimic the kind of memory required in episodic memories, a form of declarative/relational memory. We are also in the process of developing a novel family of naturalistic memory tasks based on memory for social interactions that are designed to tap the natural learning and memory tasks that monkeys have evolved to solve. A long-term goal is to understand not only how medial temporal lobe areas contribute to these tasks, but also how the medial temporal lobe may interact with other brain areas including the prefrontal cortex and striatum during both acquisition and retrieval of declarative/relational information.