Hannah Bernstein graduated from Stanford University and

then entered the MD PhD Program at NYU. Having successfully finished her first years in the MD part of the program, she is now conducting her thesis research for her PhD.  She is using optogenetics to dissect the circuitry of the dentate gyrus, with emphasis on its role in psychiatric illness.

Korey Kam received his PhD in 2016 and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in the laboratory of Dr. Andrew Vargas. For his PhD he addressed the early signs of hyperexcitability in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s Disease neuropathology. He found that as early as 5 weeks of age there are interictal spikes in sleep in the Tg2576 mouse model. He also found the interictal spikes in sleep in APPLondon mice, a second mouse model.

Korey Kam

     Hannah    

   Bernstein

Patrice Pearce defended her thesis and graduated in 2012.  For her dissertation she showed that estrogen and testostserone regulate hippocampal sharp wave in the rat in vivo.  This study is the first to directly associate sharp waves, a characteristic of the hippocampal EEG that is seminal to memory, with gonadal steroids in vivo.  It provides a physiological mechanism for the regulation of cognitive function by estrogens and androgens. Patrice is currently at the University of Pittsburgh where she is a postdoctoral fellow.

KERIA BERMUDEZ-HERNANDEZ, PHD

Keria defended her thesis and is graduating in 2015.  For her dissertation she demonstrated that normally in the dentate gyrus there are ectopic granule cells in the hilus, and that C57bl6 and Swiss Webster mouse strains have different numbers of ectopic granule cells as well as distinct septotemporal distributions of these cells.  Then she showed that by increasing the survival of normal progenitors of granule cells she could increase the numbers of ectopic granule cells.  For her postdoctoral work she will be working in the laboratory of David Fenyo at NYULMC.