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David H. Cohen is neurobiologist and university administrator. David H. Cohen studied a learning pathway in the brain for almost half of his career. Cohen  developed a "vertebrate model system" which means he used a non-human species to study the brain. The brain, so that he could learn more about how nerve pathways in general work. He studied other vertebrates to discover how signals travel in human nerves. Cohen discovered the pathway of nerves that is used when conditioning is taking place. The pathway of nerves he discovered is "plastic" or is able to adapt to the inputs it is receiving. This is what allows an animal to be slowly conditioned over time. The rest of his career was spent teaching and serving as an  academic chair, as well as being involved with different boards and organizations (the Argonne National Laboratory, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the Society of Neuroscience.

Biography
David H. Cohen started his research project vertebrate model system when he was hired as a professor at Western Reserve Medical School. He had to choose a specific animal to study and perform his research on. Cohen had worked with pigeons before and knew that they were easy to handle. However, in order for him to do his research, he had to understand how a pigeon's nervous system works. According to Cohen, this was hard because scientists at that time did not really study the nervous system of piegons in depth so, there was no way for him to read other people's literature. Since he conducted his own studies on the nervous system of pigeons for his own research, he was also able to publish his findings about the pigeon's nervous system in "The Journal of Comparative Neurology.”. While he was doing this, he became friends with Harvet Karten, a very renowned and popular scientist who studied the nervous systems of birds. This helped him learn more about the nervous systems of birds in general.  Cohen had to find an easy way to test conditioning of birds.  This was tricky since, he had to find something that could be measured and recorded. He decided that he would measure the heart rates of the pigeons it is something that can be easily conditioned with the right stimuli. At the time, scientists understood how to design these kinds of conditioning studies on mammals and test their heart rates. However, no one had figured out how to design these studies using birds, so he had to design a paradigm himself. Basically, Cohen showed the birds a light and then gave them a mild electric shock on their feet. This caused their heart rate to increase. Eventually, the birds' heart rate increased whenever he showed them the light (without the shock). Meaning that he conditioned them to react to the light alone. Thus, like our discussion about the dog earlier, the unconditioned stimulus is the electrical shock, the birds heart rate going up is the unconditioned response (because this is what they normally do when shocked). The conditioned stimulus was the light, and the conditioned response was the birds heart rate increasing only to the light, with no electrical shock present.

3 major goals in his research over the years

 * Wanted to come up with a way to perform associative learning studies on cells, not just pigeons
 * Wanted to learn more about how the pigeon nervous systems functions
 * Wanted to learn how the nervous system controls the cardiovascular system (like the heart and blood vessels)

Positions Held

 * Assistant Professor of Physiology, Western Reserve University (1964–1968)
 * Associate Professor of Physiology, University of Virginia (1968–1971)
 * Professor of Physiology, University of Virginia (1971–1979)
 * Chairman, Neuroscience Program, University of Virginia (1975–1979)
 * Professor and Chairman, Department of Neurobiology, SUNY Stony Brook (1979–1986)
 * Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School, Northwestern University
 * Professor of Neurobiology, Northwestern University (1986–1995)
 * Provost, Northwestern University (1992–1995)
 * Vice President and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University (1995–2003)
 * Professor of Biological Sciences, Columbia University (1995–2008)
 * Professor of Neuroscience in Psychiatry, Columbia University (1995–2008)
 * Vice President and Dean of the Faculty Emeritus of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University
 * Alan H. Kempner Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences, Columbia University (2008–Present)
 * Professor Emeritus of Neuroscience in Psychiatry (2008–Present)

Honors & Awards

 * NIH, NHLBI Research Career Development Award
 * Fellow, Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research
 * Fellow, Society for Behavioral Medicine
 * Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
 * Distinguished Service Member, Association of American Medical Colleges
 * Distinguished Service Award, Association for Neuroscience Departments and
 * Programs President, Society for Neuroscience, 1981–1982
 * President, Association for Neuroscience Departments and Programs, 1981–1982
 * Chair, Association of American Medical Colleges, 1989–1990
 * named University of the People Provost in December 2009 following a distinguished career as a neurobiologist and university administrator (2009)

Selected Literature for continued reading on David H. Cohen

 * Cohen, David H.; Schnall, Adrian M.; Macdonald, Robert L.; Pitts, Lawrence H. (1970). "Medullary cells of origin of vagal cardioinhibitory fibers in the pigeon. I. Anatomical studies of peripheral vagus nerve and the dorsal motor nucleus". Journal of Comparative Neurology. 140 (3): 299–320.
 * Cohen, DavidH.; Trauner, DorisA. (1969-01). "Studies of avian visual pathways involved in cardiac conditioning: Nucleus rotundus and ectostriatum". Experimental Brain Research. 7 (2).
 * Cohen, David H. (1974), DiCara, Leo V. (ed.), "The Neural Pathways and Informational Flow Mediating a Conditioned Autonomic Response", Limbic and Autonomic Nervous Systems Research, Springer US, pp. 223–275, doi:10.1007/978-1-4613-4407-0_7, ISBN 978-1-4613-4407-0, retrieved 2020-03-31
 * Duff, T. A.; Cohen, D. H. (1975-07-04). "Retinal afferents to the pigeon optic tectum: discharge characteristics in response to whole field illumination".
 * Durkovic, R. G.; Cohen, D. H. (1969-10). "Effect of caudal midbrain lesions on conditioning of heart- and respiratory-rate responses in the pigeon". Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology. 69 (2): 329–338. doi:10.1037/h0028164. ISSN 0021-9940.
 * Elmslie, K. S.; Cohen, D. H. (1990-05-28). "Iontophoresis of norepinephrine onto neurons of the pigeon's lateral geniculate nucleus: characterization of an inhibitory response". Brain Research. 517 (1–2): 134–142. doi:10.1016/0006-8993(90)91018-c. ISSN 0006-8993. PMID 2165429.
 * Gamlin, P. D.; Cohen, D. H. (1986-08-15). "A second ascending visual pathway from the optic tectum to the telencephalon in the pigeon (Columba livia)". The Journal of Comparative Neurology. 250 (3): 296–310. doi:10.1002/cne.902500304. ISSN 0021-9967. PMID 3745517.
 * Macdonald, Robert L.; Cohen, David H. (1970). "Cells of origin of sympathetic pre- and postganglionic cardioacceleratory fibers in the pigeon". Journal of Comparative Neurology. 140 (3): 343–357. doi:10.1002/cne.901400307. ISSN 1096-9861.
 * Gibbs, C. M.; Cohen, D. H.; Broyles, J. L. (1986-03). "Modification of the discharge of lateral geniculate neurons during visual learning". The Journal of Neuroscience: The Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience. 6 (3): 627–636. ISSN 0270-6474. PMC 6568469. PMID 3958787.
 * Gold, M. R.; Cohen, D. H. (1981-10-16). "Modification of the discharge of vagal cardiac neurons during learned heart rate change". Science. 214 (4518): 345–347. doi:10.1126/science.7280698. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 7280698.
 * Leonard, R. B.; Cohen, D. H. (1975-09-15). "A cytoarchitectonic analysis of the spinal cord of the pigeon (Columba livia)". The Journal of Comparative Neurology. 163 (2): 159–180. doi:10.1002/cne.901630203. ISSN 0021-9967. PMID 1165324.
 * Wild, J. M.; Cohen, D. H. (1985-04-01). "Invariance of retinal output during visual learning". Brain Research. 331 (1): 127–135. doi:10.1016/0006-8993(85)90721-8. ISSN 0006-8993. PMID 3986556.
 * Schwaber, J. S.; Cohen, D. H. (1978-05-19). "Field potential and single unit analyses of the avian dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus and citeria for identifying vagal cardiac cells of origin". Brain Research. 147 (1): 79–90. doi:10.1016/0006-8993(78)90773-4. ISSN 0006-8993. PMID 656918.

(Each article is focused on some type of conditioning in pigeons, which was the main focus of David H. Cohen in his early research career)