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| Charles R. Gerfen, Ph.D., Senior Investigator |
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Dr. Gerfen received a B.A. from Amherst College and Ph.D. from Northwestern University. His doctoral research was on neural substrates of reward involving the prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia. During a post-doctoral fellowship in the Laboratory of Max Cowan at the Salk Institute, he developed the PHA-L axonal tracing technique with Paul Sawchenko. In 1983, Dr. Gerfen was recruited by Ed Evarts to the Laboratory of Neurophysiology within NIMH to work on the neuroanatomy of the forebrain and established some of the functional prinicples of the organization of the basal ganglia. Dr. Gerfen's lab now works on receptor mediated gene regulation, with an emphasis on how functionally defined neurons in the forebrain display distinct forms of neuronal plasticity, dependent on differential regulation of multiple protein kinase signaling pathways.
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Staff:
- Subhadra Banerjee, Ph.D., Research Fellow, (301) 402-6888 subha@codon.nih.gov
- Pierre Brown, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow, (301) 402-6948 piebro@codon.nih.gov
- Alex Cummins, Senior Research Assistant ace@codon.nih.gov
- Ron Harbaugh, Senior Research Assistant, (301) 496-9334 crh@codon.nih.gov
- Hui-Min Zhao, Ph.D., Research Fellow, (301) 402-6826 hzhao@codon.nih.gov
Research Interests:
We study the functional organization of the basal ganglia. While the role of the basal ganglia in behavior remains obscure, diseases that affect its function result in profound neurological disorders, including Parkinson�s Disease, chorea, dystonia and other movement disorders, and is implicated in a wide range of mental disorders including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Depression. Our research initially mapped out the connectional organization of this system, characterizing the compartmental nature of the input-output organization of the striatum, which is the main nucleus of the basal ganglia. This work identified the principal neuron types in the basal ganglia in terms of their neuroanatomical connections and neurochemical phenotype. Our work is now focused on how the two main output neurons of the striatum, direct and indirect projection neurons, differ functionally, through their distinct responses to glutamatergic excitatory inputs as modulated by their expression of D1 and D2 dopamine receptor subtypes. Current work examines differences in receptor-mediated signal transduction regulation of the gene expression underlying distinct forms of neuronal plasticity in direct and indirect striatal projection neurons. Particular emphasis is placed on determining the molecular basis of an aberrant form of neuronal plasticity that occurs in direct projection neurons in animal models of Parkinson�s disease.
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Selected Recent Publications:
Gerfen CR, Miyachi S, Paletzki R, Brown P (2002) D1 Dopamine receptor supersensitivity in the dopamine-depleted striatum results from a switch in the regulation of ERK1/2/MAP Kinase, J Neuroscience 22, 5042-5054.
Full Text/Abstract
All Selected Publications
Contact Information:
Dr. Charles R. Gerfen
Laboratory of System Neuroscience, NIMH
Porter Neuroscience Research Center
Building 35, Room 3A-1000
35 Convent Drive, MSC 3726
Bethesda, MD 20892-3726
Telephone: (301) 496-4341 (office),
(000) 000-0000 (laboratory),
(301) 402-8960 (fax)
Email: gerfenc@intra.nimh.nih.gov
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