Neurobiologist shared groundbreaking memory research yesterday

Nobel Prize winner Dr. Eric Kandel spoke at UA yesterday on the molecular biology of memory and the commonalities of long-term and short-term memory creation.

A professor of physiology and psychiatry at Columbia University, Kandel specializes in research that delves into the two types of memory: explicit, or declarative memory, and implicit, or procedural memory. He also compares their molecular paths.

Kandel's lab, which combines the studies of neurobiology and physiology to approach the scientific questions posed by "the unification of the brain and the mind," studies both mammals and less complex organisms.

"Is it practice which makes perfect in both types of memory?" he asked.

He started his research by focusing on Aplysia, a species of mollusk. Now Kandel also works with rats and mice in his lab; he examines the molecular mechanisms contributing to their spatial memory, a type of explicit memory.

Kandel won the 2000 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with two other researchers for their work on the fundamental connections between nerve cells.

He is "one of the most influential neuroscientists in the world," said the University of Arizona Committee of Neuroscience Chair Leslie Tolbert, "(because of his) thoroughness and elucidation of the principles of neuroscience."

Kandel also had a hand in the development of neuroscience at UA. His influence began in 1980, when his advice was recruited by a group of University of Arizona neurobiologists interested in expanding their department.

What resulted was the Arizona Research Labs (AZRL) Division of Neurobiology, an interdisciplinary program at UA that specifies in studying insect neurobiology, said AZRL researcher and professor of neurobiology Linda Restifo.

The AZRL, said Restifo, is a series of labs that study the invertebrate model of neurobiology. "Studying simple models," she said, "then leads into more complicated models, like mice, and the same principles of the molecular mechanisms of memory apply."