Neuroscience

Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers have identified a protein trafficking defect within brain cells that may underlie common non-familial forms of Parkinson’s disease. 

Seeking to bridge the transition from pediatric to adult care for people living with cerebral palsy, Debby and Peter A. Weinberg, with several of their family members and friends, have given more than $7 million to help establish the Weinberg Family Cerebral Palsy Center at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC). 

Jim Yardley has seen firsthand how the nanotechnology field has exploded over the past decade. “It’s extremely exciting,” says the managing director of Columbia’s Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center. 

In the hippocampus, the dentate gyrus—which uses pattern separation to form new memories—is one of two areas of the brain where neurogenesis takes place.

In his research, Axel explains that the sense of smell is possible because neurons directly connect the brain to the outside world. Receptors on the neurons of the nose pick up odors from the environment and send that information directly to the olfactory bulb, the first relay station in the brain.

About 10 percent of kids born with kidney defects have large alterations in their genomes known to be linked with neurodevelopmental delay and mental illness, a new study by Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers has shown.

Thomas M. Jessell, co-director of the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, believes the program offers the prospect of changing the way that many aspects of academics will be pursued at Columbia in the decades to come.

Morrison and his team are tackling the problem of head injuries by exploring the biomechanics of the brain and its response on a biological level to traumatic brain injury.

Maybe you have heard of robots that can fly. But how about a robot that is able to learn through its own experiences to drive itself to the airport?

Researchers in the Taub Institute at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) have identified a mechanism that appears to underlie the common sporadic (non-familial) form of Parkinson’s disease, the progressive movement disorder. 

Columbia neurophysiologist David Sulzer took his first piano lessons at the age of 11 and was playing his violin and guitar in bars by age 15. Later he gained a national following as a founder of the Soldier String Quartet and the Thai Elephant Orchestra—an actual orchestra of elephants in northern Thailand—and for playing with the likes of Bo Diddley, the Velvet Underground’s John Cale and the jazz great Tony Williams.