Scripps Florida - The Scripps Research Institute Department of Neuroscience

The Department of Neuroscience at the Scripps Florida campus is focused on understanding the mechanisms underlying learning and memory, sleep, and consciousness and the human diseases that affect these cognitive processes. Our activities include basic research to understand how neurons and other brain cells work individually and collectively. The basic research is interdisciplinary and utilizes techniques of genetics, molecular biology, cell biology, imaging, neurophysiology, neuroanatomy, and behavior. Our molecular and cellular imaging approaches are a highlight: we have developed methodologies to visualize the changes that occur in the brain with learning in order to understand how memories are represented in the brain. We are also engaged at translating our basic research discoveries into therapeutics through new drug discovery that can help improve the cognitive impairments associated with aging and the many psychiatric and neurological conditions that alter memory including Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, autism, and anxiety and depression. Our discoveries include key molecules involved in the cellular machinery underlying memory formation, the specific molecular target for certain types of antidepressants, and the identification of molecules that underlie the etiology of Alzheimer’s disease, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia.