Interview with Charan Ranganath Professor Charan Ranganath, UC Davis Center for Neuroscience, talks about the latest advances in understanding memory, in particular memory and the healthy aging brain, and PTSD. Interviewed by Davis Community Television host Lin Weaver on June 13, 2019
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MAP Faculty Recognition An advocate for computational and quantitative biology, Goldman has been appointed to the Joel Keizer Endowed Chair in Theoretical and Computational Biology. The position honors the late Professor Joel Keizer, a pioneering UC Davis faculty member and theoretical biologist who spent 28 years on campus. He died on May 16, 1999 from lung cancer at the age of 56.
“I never had the honor of knowing Joel Keizer but I’ve certainly heard from my colleagues here about him, about how generous he was, about how he was a community builder,” said Goldman. “It’s obviously a huge honor.” “Mark is ideally suited for the Keizer Endowed Chair,” said Executive Associate Dean of Academic Affairs John Harada, a professor in the Department of Plant Biology. “His research in theoretical and computational neuroscience is providing a foundation for linking information obtained at the cellular level to a system level understanding of animal behavior.” Interview with David Olson Researchers have in recent years studied the potential benefits of microdosing psychedelic drugs such as LSD and MDMA as treatments for PTSD, schizophrenia, and depression associated with cancer treatment. Last year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of an ingredient found in magic mushrooms for a drug trial aimed at treating depression. Opponents, though, say the research is too new and limited to be reliable, while others who are critical say what little research does exist excludes communities of color.
Interview with David Olson LSD could be a future treatment for depression. In this Academic Minute article, David E. Olson, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Medicine at the University of California, Davis, explores how psychedelic compounds could treat disorders of the mind.
Interview with Charan Ranganath Experts say that during trauma, the brain does select for salient details. Research indeed shows that norepinephrine, a neurotransmitter released in response to stress or emotional arousal, allows the brain to zero in on certain things and tune out others, says Charan Ranganath, director of the Memory and Plasticity Program at the University of California at Davis. (Ranganath is not involved in the Kavanaugh confirmation process.) “People tend to think of memory as all-or-none — as if you either remember everything, or your entire memory is flawed,” Ranganath says. “Neuromodulators like norepinephrine can change what will and will not be prioritized, so it’s very possible that some aspects of an event can be retained and recalled fairly accurately for long periods of time, while other, less significant details may be lost.”
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