Leah Krubitzer is an American

neuroscientist A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, neural circuits, and glial ...

, Professor of Psychology at

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...

, and head of the Laboratory of Evolutionary Neurobiology. Her research interests center on how complex brains in

mammals Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur o ...

(e.g., humans) evolve from simpler forms. To do this, she focuses on anatomical connections and electrophysiological characteristics of neurons in the neocortex (i.e., the part of the brain associated with

perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous syste ...

cognition Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, though ...

learning Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machines; there is also evidence for some kind of lea ...

, and

memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remember ...

). Using comparative studies, she determines which features of the neocortex are shared by all mammals and how new features of the neocortex have evolved. This allows her to reconstruct evolutionary phylogenies of the neocortex together with their relationship to functional changes. Thus, her work aims to explain the diversity in mammalian behavioral and perceptual abilities by investigating how evolutionarily old developmental mechanisms constrain evolutionary change while also providing the variation needed for the evolution of the diversity of brains found in mammals. She was a reviewer for the 2009

NIH The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

Director's Pioneer Award.

History

Leah Krubitzer completed her undergraduate course work, and received a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degree from

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a public state-related land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855 as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, Penn State becam ...

. She attended

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...

where she completed graduate school. She earned a PhD in

Physiological Psychology Physiological psychology is a subdivision of behavioral neuroscience (biological psychology) that studies the neural mechanisms of perception and behavior through direct manipulation of the brains of nonhuman animal subjects in controlled experime ...

. Upon completion of her PhD, Krubitzer moved to Australia for six years to study at the

University of Queensland , mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work , established = , endowment = A$224.3 million , budget = A$2.1 billion , type = Public research university , chancellor = Peter Varghese , vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry , city = B ...

. During her time in Australia, she studied the

neurobiology Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developme ...

of different mammals. Two animals she studied most regularly were the extant monotremes, the spiny anteater and the duckbilled platypus. Krubitzer's research interests include the

neuroanatomical Neuroanatomy is the study of the structure and organization of the nervous system. In contrast to animals with radial symmetry, whose nervous system consists of a distributed network of cells, animals with bilateral symmetry have segregated, defi ...

, behavioral, and electrophysiological techniques used to study the

neocortex The neocortex, also called the neopallium, isocortex, or the six-layered cortex, is a set of layers of the mammalian cerebral cortex involved in higher-order brain functions such as sensory perception, cognition, generation of motor commands, sp ...

. Krubitzer has been intrigued by how the neocortex has evolved over time and the ways in which is it organized within different types of mammals.

Lab work and research

Krubitzer works on

mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur ...

s studying the different

anatomical Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having it ...

connections in the

, as well as the

neuron A neuron, neurone, or nerve cell is an electrically excitable cell that communicates with other cells via specialized connections called synapses. The neuron is the main component of nervous tissue in all animals except sponges and placozoa ...

s present and their electrophysiological properties. The

is an important part of the brain as it is responsible for functions such as

and

, and

. Krubitzer and her team have gone down two different paths to research the

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

of the

in mammals. Her lab has been focusing on studying cortical evolution and development, as well as, the

parietal cortex The parietal lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The parietal lobe is positioned above the temporal lobe and behind the frontal lobe and central sulcus. The parietal lobe integrates sensory inform ...

. Krubitzer and her team have decided to focus part of their research on studying the cortical evolution of the

. It is known that the

has the ability to adapt and change over time. This is an important feature that allows the brain function and connectivity to coordinate movements vital for an organism's survival in a specific environment. Krubitzer and her team used a variety of different

rodent Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are n ...

s and

squirrel Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae, a family that includes small or medium-size rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrels. ...

s to test their

hypothesis A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it. Scientists generally base scientific hypotheses on previous obse ...

. They hypothesized that the level of cortical activity organization would be directly correlated with the specific connections in the brain based on the environment that the particular animal was accustomed. Differences were found between the lab animals and wild caught animals as would be expected. Krubitzer varied the amounts of sensory stimuli that each test subject was exposed to early on in development. By doing this, she was able to track the organization of the cortex from early development on. One example of how she did this was altering the vision in an

opossum Opossums () are members of the marsupial order Didelphimorphia () endemic to the Americas. The largest order of marsupials in the Western Hemisphere, it comprises 93 species in 18 genera. Opossums originated in South America and entered No ...

in early development. Research found that when vision is lost early in development, other sensory systems will begin to take over that area and the cortex will re-organize itself to make up for the loss of this sensation. The

is another area of interest for Krubitzer. The

allows us to coordinate movements between our eyes and our hands. This ability allows for smooth reaching movements, as well as, grasping. Past research has been done on Old and

New World monkey New World monkeys are the five families of primates that are found in the tropical regions of Mexico, Central and South America: Callitrichidae, Cebidae, Aotidae, Pitheciidae, and Atelidae. The five families are ranked together as the Ceboidea ...

s, as well as humans, to see how the

functions in hand use. Imaging used on humans shows that there are similar cortical patterns shared across human and non-human primates, but the extent to which these pathways are used depends on the

somatosensory In physiology, the somatosensory system is the network of neural structures in the brain and body that produce the perception of touch (haptic perception), as well as temperature (thermoception), body position ( proprioception), and pain. It ...

organization and connectivity in the

. Krubitzer and her team took this information and investigated a little deeper. Because humans have an

opposable thumb The thumb is the first digit of the hand, next to the index finger. When a person is standing in the medical anatomical position (where the palm is facing to the front), the thumb is the outermost digit. The Medical Latin English noun for thumb ...

, our ability to grip objects and reach for objects is much greater than monkeys. For this reason, the connectivity in the human parietal cortex is much more complex than that of a non-human primate. In Krubitzer's lab, her team investigated different areas of the

in order to better pin point which part controls which motor movement. Krubitzer found that when one area of the cortex responsible for a certain motor movement is compromised, the rest of the cortex will reorganize itself to make up for the loss. This finding shows how the

can rewire itself in order to maintain functional motor capabilities. Currently in the lab, Krubitzer and colleagues are testing a microchip that may be placed in the

posterior parietal cortex The posterior parietal cortex (the portion of parietal neocortex posterior to the primary somatosensory cortex) plays an important role in planned movements, spatial reasoning, and attention. Damage to the posterior parietal cortex can produce a ...

of the brain to deactivate certain areas at a time. Using this technique, they are able to see how deactivation of a certain portion of the cortex impacts hand grasping and reaching in monkeys. This technique is performed while the monkeys are performing different manual tasks in order to see the action of the cortex live.

Awards

Leah Krubitzer has won many awards for her time and dedication to her research and the field of science as a whole. In 1996, Krubitzer won the Herrick Award from the American Association of Anatomists and went on to be part of the

MacArthur Fellows Program The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

in 1998. Krubitzer was honored to be part of the

due to her increased creative drive to further her scientific research. In 1999, Krubitzer was awarded the Special Lecture for the Society for Neuroscience Meeting and in 2002–2003, the James McKeen Cattell Sabbatical Fellowship and Bloedel Visiting Scientist Fellowship. After completing her graduate studies at Vanderbilt University, Krubitzer was awarded the Vanderbilt University Distinguished Alumni Award as a result of her advancements in studying the dynamic neocortex in mammals. In 2012, Krubitzer was awarded with the Dean's Innovation Award, Division of Social Sciences from the University of California Davis.

Works

"Arealization of the Neocortex in Mammals: Genetic and Epigenetic Contributions to the Phenotype"
''Brain, Behavior and Evolution'', Leah Krubitzer, Kelly J. Huffman
"Reversible Deactivation of Motor Cortex Reveals Functional Connectivity with Posterior Parietal Cortex in the Prosimian Galago (Otolemur garnettii)
Dylan F. Cooke1, Iwona Stepniewska2, Daniel J. Miller2, Jon H. Kaas2, and Leah Krubitzer1

References

External links

Leah Krubitzer"
''Scientific Commons'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Krubitzer, Leah 21st-century American psychologists American women psychologists American neuroscientists American women neuroscientists University of California, Davis faculty MacArthur Fellows Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American women