TAKEHARA LAB
Kaori Takehara-Nishiuchi, Ph. D.
Principal investigator
Professor of Psychology, Universtiy of Toronto
Cross-appointed to Cell and Systems Biology Department
Faculty member of Collaborative Program in Neuroscience
Dr. Kaori Takehara-Nishiuchi received her undergraduate degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Tokyo in 2001. There, she was inspired to study neurobiological mechanisms underlying associative memory by Dr. Yutaka Kirino. Subsequently, Dr. Takehara-Nishiuchi continued her graduate training with Dr. Kirino. During her graduate study, she used behavioral and pharmacological techniques to show that the medial prefrontal cortex plays a critical role in the expression of memory as the memory is consolidated as a permanent form. Dr. Takehara-Nishiuchi went on to complete a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Arizona in the laboratory of Drs. Bruce L. McNaughton and Carol A. Barnes where she examined the time course of which patterns of brain cell activity in the medial prefrontal cortex become selective for the memory. In July of 2009, she accepted a faculty position in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto where her research has focused on understanding the patterns of brain activity underlying long-term memory as well as their deterioration in memory disorders. Her discovery is recognized in many reviews and a textbook as well as by several awards for young investigators.