User:Youngbio/sandbox

One of Dr. Surmeier’s major contributions to the field is the characterization of the physiological properties of basal ganglia neurons in health and disease. In his early career, he was the first to combine patch clamp recordings with single cell RT-PCR to functionally dissect the direct and indirect pathways striatal neurons and characterize their molecular architectures that differentiate their responses to dopamine. In the past decades, he has pioneered the application of two-photon laser scanning microcopy to brain slice recordings to study dendritic physiology and synaptic plasticity of striatal neurons in Parkinson’s disease (PD), levodopa-induced dyskinesia, Huntington’s disease and chronic pain. His study has advanced our understanding on how dopamine and acetylcholine shape intrinsic and synaptic plasticity in the basal ganglia, as well as how diseases affecting dopamine release remodel basal ganglia circuits.

Another major contribution of Dr. Surmeier is the characterization of the electrophysiological phenotypes of neurons at-risk in PD, which has led to a theory of selective vulnerability in PD and a treatment of targeting calcium channels for slowing disease progression. With his rigorous study of the ionic currents in neurons that are lost in PD, including substantia nigra pars compacta dopaminergic neurons, locus ceruleus noradrenergic neurons and cholinergic dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus neurons, he found Cav1.3 calcium channels as a major contributor to mitochondrial stress and neuronal vulnerability. These studies have beautifully connected bioenergetics with neuronal physiology and mitochondria with neuronal aging, but most importantly led to the first disease modifying treatment of PD currently under a large phase III clinical trial.