Student Hosted Colloquium

Thursday, May 24th
Professor R. Mark Wightman
"Voltammetric Measurements of Rapid Chemical Signalling by Dopamine"

4:15pm - 5:15pm
Braun Lecture Hall
S.G.Mudd Chemistry Building
Stanford University




This seminar is free and open to the public. All Stanford University Chemistry students are encouraged to attend this special event.


About the seminar:
Neurotransmitters such as dopamine relay information between neurons. Using carbon-fiber microelectrodes we have developed a voltammetric-based sensing scheme to monitor dopamine in the brain during behaviour. The electrodes have micron dimensions and can be used on millisecond time scales. The voltammetric data is evaluated with principal component regression and multiple contributors to the electrochemical signals can be resolved. Furthermore, the electrodes can be used in an electrophysiological mode to sense the transient voltages that arise from neuronal firing. When the electrode is alternated between electrophysiological and chemical sensing on a subsecond time scale, a complete picture of the fluctuations of dopamine and its actions on adjacent neurons can be determined. These real-time measurements provide an entirely new view of the role of dopamine in the brain.

About Wightman:
R. Mark Wightman is the W. R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a faculty member in the Neurobiology Curriculum and the Neuroscience Center. Prior to 1989, he was a Professor of Chemistry at Indiana University. He has made scientific contributions in two distinct scientific areas, electrochemistry and neuro-chemistry, research that is described in more than 300 publications. In electrochemistry, Wight-man and his research group demonstrated that electrodes of micrometer dimensions enable ex-ploration of domains previously inaccessible to electrochemistry. His parallel research in neuro-chemistry, again using microelectrodes, provided the first real-time view of neurotransmitter dy-namics in various preparations ranging from single cultured cells to the brains of animals during behavior. In both research areas, he has developed analytical tools with unique properties, and then has used them to explore entirely new phenomena. His accomplishments have been recog-nized with an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (1981), a Simon Guggenheim Research Fellowship (1997), election to the Erskine College Academic Hall of Fame (1999), and appointment as a fel-low in the AAAS (2001). In recognition of his accomplishments in electrochemistry he has re-ceived the Chemical Instrumentation Award from the Analytical Chemistry Division of the ACS (1994), the David Graham Award from the Physical Electrochemistry Division of the Electro-chemical Society (1995), the Charles N. Reilley Award from the Society for Electroanalytical Chemistry (1996), the Pittsburgh Analytical Chemistry Award (1997), the Electrochemistry Award from the Analytical Division of the ACS (2001), and the Faraday Medal (2005). His re-search in neuroscience has been recognized by a Research Career Development Award (1979-1983) and a Jacob Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award (1989), both from the National Insti-tutes of Health, and the R. N. Adams Award in Bioanalytical Chemistry.

Questions
Please contact Patricia Dwyer at 650-723-4770.