Robert Lipsky Email & Phone Number

The hippocampus is critical to memory formation. Changes in excitatory neuronal pathways (principally acting via glutamatergic inputs) to this brain region can profoundly affect memory formation. Memory deficits are associated with morphological and functional alterations of the hippocampus, which suffers widespread damage following seizures in epileptic patients and in other conditions, such as seizures induced by withdrawal from alcohol. My central hypothesis is that neuronal activation pathways critical for cell survival and plasticity are also integral to learned behaviors such as addiction. Alcohol and other drugs of abuse cause long-term adaptive changes as a result of altered signaling and gene expression. These affected pathways are likely to impact gene expression. Genetic variaton and the environment (through epigenetic mechanisms) interact to impact phenotype, which has a clinical outcome.

• 

  Cornell University

  Genetics, Biochemistry