Eavesdropping on Chemical Neurotransmission
“监听”神经传导的化学信号
Anne Milasincic Andrews
ABSRACT
Like space, the human brain is one of our “final frontiers”. Brain neurons send information electrically along their processes. Yet when communicating with each other, information is transformed into a multitude of chemical signals. We develop methods to investigate interneuronal signaling at small scales and with high time resolution. Our approaches differentiate neurochemicals and multiplex their detection. We aim to understand how neurotransmitters work in concert to encode, process, and store information. We focus on understanding how emotional information is encoded in neurotransmitter signaling, and particularly in serotonin neurotransmission.
就像探索宇宙一样，人类大脑是科学的“终极难题”之一。脑内神经细胞利用电信号传导信息，但是当神经细胞彼此之间进行沟通时，这种电信号会转换为多种化学信号。为了研究这种神经元化学信号，我们开发了高敏感度和高时间分辨率的技术。我们的技术具有极高的选择性，能够区分多种神经递质并能够同时对多种神经递质进行检测。我们希望能够通过这些工作了解神经递质在脑内如何协同工作以编码，处理和存储信息。我们专注于理解有关情绪的信息是如何在神经递质中编码的，特别是血清素这种神经递质在脑中的作用。
BIOGRAPHY
Anne Milasincic Andrews is Professor of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences and Chemistry & Biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles where she leads basic and translational research on anxiety and depression, at the intersection of neuroscience and nanoscience. Dr. Andrews is Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and President of the International Society for Serotonin Research. Among others, Andrews has been awarded an NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award, a California Neurotechnologies Research Award, a NARSAD Independent Investigator Award, an Eli Lily Outstanding Young Analytical Chemist Award, and an NIH Fellows Award for Research Excellence.
Professor Andrews leads a multi-investigator, interdisciplinary team of biological and biomedical scientists, chemists, and engineers dedicated to developing “next-generation” sensors for investigating chemical signaling by a wide variety of neuroactive substances in behaving animals and humans. She helped to develop the Obama Whitehouse BRAIN Initiative advocating for the need to elucidate the brain’s ‘chemical connectome’.
Anne Milasincic Andrews教授是加州大学洛杉矶分校(UCLA)的精神病学与生物行为科学系以及化学与生物化学教授。由她领导的实验室通过结合神经科学和纳米科学，来进行焦虑和抑郁的基础和转化研究。 Andrews教授是美国神经心理药理学学会的会士，同时也是国际血清素研究协会主席。Andrews教授获得过众多知名奖项，其中包括美国国立卫生研究院NIH的变革性研究奖，加利福尼亚神经技术研究奖，NARSAD独立研究者奖，Eli Lily杰出年轻分析化学家奖和NIH研究人员杰出研究奖。
Andrews教授领导着一个多位教授多课题组的交叉学科团队，包括生物和生物医药科学家，化学家及工程师。她们致力于开发下一代的生物传感器，以研究动物和人类中多种神经活跃分子带来的化学信号网络。她帮助制定了奥巴马总统提出的白宫“脑计划”，该计划倡导研究和理解大脑的“化学连接组”。