Martha Constantine-Paton is a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and a professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.
Overview Prior to joining MIT in 1999 she held faculty appointments at Princeton from 1976-1984 and at Yale from 1985-1999. In 1976, Dr. Constantine-Paton earned her Ph.D from Cornell University. She is an expert on synaptic plasticity and brain development, particularly visual development. She is known for her studies on three-eyed frogs, a demonstration of neural plasticity in which a third eye grafted into a developing tadpole produces a pattern of overlapping connections that resemble mammalian ocular dominance columns.Eye-specific termination bands in tecta of three-eyed frogs. Constantine-Paton M, Law MI. Science. 1978 Nov 10;202(4368):639-41. Using this system, she and her colleagues demonstrated the importance of NMDA receptors in development plasticity.N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist desegregates eye-specific stripes. Cline HT, Debski EA, Constantine-Paton M. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 1987 Jun;84(12):4342-45.
She currently studies the molecular mechanisms that underlie the brain's response to visual experience. Her work is also relevant to understanding the mechanisms of schizophrenia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease).Neonatal neuronal circuitry shows hyperexcitable disturbance in a mouse model of the adult-onset neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. van Zundert B, Peuscher MH, Hynynen M, Chen A, Neve RL, Brown RH Jr, Constantine-Paton M, Bellingham MC. J Neurosci. 2008 Oct 22;28(43):10864-74.
Personal life She is married to Nobel laureate H. Robert Horvitz.
References
External links Constantine-Paton lab at MIT McGovern Institute for Brain Research