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Mortimer Mishkin, Ph.D., Senior Investigator
Dr. Mishkin received an A.B. from Dartmouth College (1946) and an M.A. (1949) and Ph.D. (1951) from McGill University. His masters thesis was directed by D. O. Hebb, and his Ph.D. thesis, performed at Yale University, was directed jointly by H.E. Rosvold and K.H. Pribram. In 1955, after completing his postdoctoral research with both Pribram at the Institute of Living and H.-L. Teuber at Bellevue Medical Center, he moved to NIMH as an Investigator. Dr. Mishkin served as Chief of the Laboratory of Neuropsychology from 1980 to 1987 and was Associate Director for Basic Research from 1994 to 1997. He is currently a Senior Investigator and his laboratory explores the neurobiological mechanisms of perception and memory.
Photo of Mortimer Mishkin, Ph.D., Senior Investigator
Staff:


Research Interests:
The Section uses a multidisciplinary approach to investigate the neurobiological mechanisms underlying learning and memory in primates. In monkeys, the approach involves: (a) utilizing metabolic mapping techniques, including both autoradiography and neuroimaging, to delineate the cerebral territory belonging to a particular functional neural system; (b) studying the effects of selective lesions within that terrritory on the performance of specially designed learning and memory tasks in various sensory modalities, in the attempt to separate and identify different mnemonic functions and localize their critical neural substrates; (c) applying anatomical tracing techniques, to reveal how the different substrates belonging to a functional family are organized as components of a neural system or circuit; (d) recording electrophysiological activity within the identified substrates, to determine the nature of the information those neurons receive and transmit before, during, and after learning; and (e) injecting pharmacological agents into those same substrates, to relate the learning-dependent changes in behavior and neuronal activity to the underlying cellular and synaptic mechanisms. The learning and memory mechanisms uncovered in the research on monkeys serves as the basis for a search for homologous mechanisms in brain-damaged patients examined both neuropsychologically and with quantitative magnetic resonance techniques. (The research on patients is conducted in collaboration with a team at the Institute of Child Health, University College London.)
Selected Recent Publications:

  • Poremba, A., Saunders, R.C., Crane, A.M., Cook, M., Sokoloff, L., and Mishkin, M. (2003) Functional mapping of the primate auditory system., Science 299, 568-572.

  • Malkova, L. and Mishkin, M. (2003) One-trial memory for object-place associations after separate lesions of hippocampus and posterior parahippocampal region in the monkey., Journal of Neuroscience 23, 1956-1965.

  • Vargha-Khadem, F., Gadian, D.G., and Mishkin, M. (2001) Dissociations in cognitive memory: The syndrome of developmental amnesia. , Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 356, 1435-1440.

Contact Information:

Dr. Mortimer Mishkin
Cognitive Neuroscience Section
Laboratory of Neuropsychology, NIMH
Building 49, Room 1B80
49 Convent Drive, MSC 4415
Bethesda, MD 20892-4415

Telephone: (301) 496-5625 ext. 201 (office), (301) 402-0046 (fax)
Email: mm@ln.nimh.nih.gov
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Send email to neuroscience@nih.gov 		Last updated Thursday, October 20, 2005