| | Principal Investigators
| Elisabeth A. Murray, Ph.D. |
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Dr. Murray received her B.S. in Biology from Bucknell University and her Ph.D. in
Physiology from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. After postdoctoral
work at the NIMH studying the neural substrates of tactual learning and memory, she became
first a Staff Fellow and then a tenured faculty member of the Laboratory of
Neuropsychology. Dr. Murray is currently the Chief of the Section on the Neurobiology of
Learning & Memory in the Laboratory of Neuropsychology at NIMH. Dr. Murray was awarded
the Demuth Swiss Medical Research Foundation Award for Young Investigators in the
Neurosciences and a PHS Special Recognition Award.
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| Research Interests |
Dr. Murray's laboratory is studying the neural basis of learning and memory, including how object and spatial perceptions in the different sensory modalities are formed into memories, how they evoke emotions and motor acts, and how the stored information may be used to plan future actions. Of special interest are the independent mnemonic contributions of the different medial temporal lobes structures, the extent to which different medial temporal lobe structures must interact in storing information, and their interaction with the prefrontal cortex. Dr. Murray's lab has pioneered the use of MRI-guided stereotaxic surgery, a method that has for the first time allowed examination of the selective mnemonic contributions of various medial temporal lobe structures. Her work has demonstrated that, for some types of memory, the entorhinal and perirhinal cortical regions in the ventral medial temporal lobe are more important than the hippocampus. Not only does this area, termed the rhinal cortex, specialize in storing knowledge about objects, but it may serve as the core system for semantic memory.
Other research in the lab examines the neural circuits critical for affective processing,
and the way in which affective information guides response selection and decision-making.
This work has shown that the amygdala and orbital prefrontal cortex operate as part of a
network involved in emotion, reward-based learning, and goal-directed behavior. These
circuits contribute importantly to behavioral flexibility in the face of changes in reward
contingencies or value.
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| Representative Selected Recent Publications: |
- Murray EA and Wise SP:
What, if anything, is the medial temporal lobe, and how can the amygdala be part of it if
there is no such thing? Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 2004, 82: 178-198.
- Izquierdo A, Suda RK, and Murray EA:
Bilateral orbital prefrontal cortex lesions disrupt choices guided by both reward value and
reward contingency. Journal of Neuroscience, 2004, 24: 7540-7548.
- Hampton RR, Hampstead BM, and Murray EA:
Selective hippocampal damage impairs spatial memory in an open-field test.
Hippocampus, 2004, 14: 808-818.
- Izquierdo A and Murray EA:
Combined unilateral lesions of the amygdala and orbital prefrontal cortex impair affective
processing. Journal of Neurophysiology, 2004, 91: 2023-2039.
- Bussey TJ, Saksida LM, and Murray EA: Impairments in visual discrimination after perirhinal cortex lesions: testing "declarative" versus "perceptual-mnemonic" views of perirhinal cortex function.
European Journal of Neuroscience, 2003, 17: 649-660.
- Baxter MG and Murray EA:
The amygdala and reward. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2002, 3: 563-573.
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