Department of Genetics Seminar: Tsuyoshi Miyakawa, PhD

“Neuronal Immaturity Induced by Neural Excitations as an Endophenotype of Neuropsychiatric Disorders”

Event Start Date: 2026-02-09
Event Start Time: 12:00 PM
Event End Time: 1:00 PM
Event Location: Life Sciences Building Auditorium (LSB) 15

Tsuyoshi Miyakawa, PhD, is a Professor and the director of the Division of Systems Medical Science at Fujita Health University. He received B.A, M.A, and Ph.D. degrees in Psychology, in 1993, 1995 and 1997 respectively, at the University of Tokyo (Advisor: Hiroaki Niki). After being a Research Scientist at Niki’s lab at Riken Brain Science Institute, he moved to the US in 1998 and received postdoctoral training from Jacqueline Crawley in Section on Behavioral Neuropharmacology at National Institute of Mental Health. In 1999, he became a Research Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University. He then moved to Picower Center for Learning and Memory, directed by Susumu Tonegawa, at MIT in 2001 and was a Research Scientist and the supervisor of behavior core facility there. He has been investigating the relationships between genes, brain and behavior by utilizing a “comprehensive behavioral test battery” on genetically engineered mice since 1993. At MIT, he found that forebrain-specific calcineurin knockout mice show multiple abnormal behaviors related to schizophrenia with the strategy and this made him believe that a systematic investigation of the behaviors of mutant mice is helpful in understanding the pathophysiology and pathogenesis of neuropsychiatric disorders. Since coming back to Japan in 2003, Miyakawa and his colleagues have assessed more than 200 different strains of mutant mice and they are trying to find what is happening in the brains of the mice models of psychiatric disorders.

Host: Gleb Shumyatsky, Ph.D. , Professor, Department of Genetics