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Kazu Nakazawa, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Kazutoshi Nakazawa is the Chief of the Unit on the Genetics of Cognition and Behavior, Mood and
Anxiety Disorders Program, National Institute of Mental Health.
Dr. Nakazawa received his medical degree in 1987 and earned his Ph.D in 1991, both of which from Keio
University School of Medicine in Tokyo, Japan, investigating the elucidation of molecular diversity
of mammalian glycosyltransferase families. In 1991, he began post-doctoral training for neuroscience
at Laboratory for Neural Networks, Frontier Research Programs (later jointed into Brain Science
Institute) in the Institute of Chemical and Physical Research (RIKEN Institute) at Wako, Japan.
During this time, his research was focused upon the molecular and cellular mechanisms of cerebellar
long-term depression (LTD). His research revealed a possible involvement of AMPA receptor phosphorylation
and c-JunB, one of immediate early genes, in induction and expression of cerebellar LTD, respectively.
In 1995 he moved to Center for Learning and Memory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a
research fellow and he became a research associate in 2000. While at MIT he pursued the development of
cell type-restricted gene manipulation systems in different brain-subregions by over-expressing Cre
recombinase in transgenic mice. Utilizing the systems, he created several conditional NMDA receptor
knockout mice in a brain cell-type specific manner. He extensively analyzed one of the conditional
NMDA receptor knockout mouse strains, hippocampal CA3 pyramidal cell-specific NMDA receptor knockout
mice, with a state-of-art in vivo multi-electrode recording techniques from awake-behaving
mice and with rodent behavioral techniques. He discovered (1) CA3 NMDA receptors are crucial for
memory acquisition of one-trial experience, (2) the same receptors are also required for associative
memory recall (i.e., pattern completion) during recall. From these studies based on both
behavioral and electrophysiological techniques, NMDA receptor channels expressed in the same CA3
pyramidal cells have been shown to play multiple roles in the hippocampus-dependent mnemonic process.
Dr. Nakazawa joined the NIMH in March, 2003. His unit relies on a multidisciplinary approach using
the techniques of rodent genetics, molecular and cellular biochemistry, neurobiology, histochemistry,
in vivo tetrode recording, and rodent behavioral analysis. Current research goal of his unit
is an expansion of previous findings, of particular interest is to clarify the functional role of
neuronal activity of rodent limbic cortex in mnemonic process implicated in declarative (explicit)
memory.
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