Elizabeth Quinlan (neuroscientist)
{{Short description|American neuroscientist}}
{{Infobox academic|name=Elizabeth Quinlan|birth_place=Chicago, Illinois|nationality=American|occupation=Professor at the University of Maryland, Clark Leadership Chair in Neuroscience, Director of the Brain and Behavior Institute (BBI)|alma_mater=University of Iowa, University of Illinois at Chicago|discipline=Neuroscience|sub_discipline=Plasticity|academic_advisors=Mark F. Bear|website=https://biology.umd.edu/elizabeth-quinlan.html}}
Elizabeth Quinlan is an American neuroscientist and a professor at the University of Maryland.{{Cite web|title=Elizabeth Quinlan|url=https://biology.umd.edu/elizabeth-quinlan.html|access-date=2021-11-22|website=Department of Biology|language=en}} There she serves as the Clark Leadership Chair in Neuroscience and as the Director of the Brain and Behavior Institute (BBI). Her research focuses on understanding how the plasticity of juvenile and adult mammalian visual systems differ.{{Cite web|title=Episode 19: Elizabeth Quinlan, PhD|url=https://www.conjugate.blog/figures/episode-19quinlan|access-date=2021-11-24|website=Conjugate: Illustration and Science Blog|language=en-US}}
Background and education
Quinlan was born in Chicago, Illinois. She attended Amos Alonso Stagg High School and later attended the University of Iowa, where she earned a B.S. in psychology and minor in biology. She then received her Ph.D. in physiology from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Quinlan completed her first postdoctoral training at the University of Virginia in cell biology. Later, she completed another postdoctoral training at Brown University, where she worked in Mark Bear's lab studying the mechanisms of experience-dependent brain modification in mammals.{{Cite web|title=Episode 19: Elizabeth Quinlan, PhD|url=https://www.conjugate.blog/figures/episode-19quinlan|access-date=2021-11-24|website=Conjugate: Illustration and Science Blog|language=en-US}}{{Cite web|title=Mark Bear {{!}} bearlab|url=http://bearlab.mit.edu/mark-bear|access-date=2021-11-24|website=bearlab.mit.edu}}
Career and research
In 1999, Quinlan alongside Benjamin D. Philpot, Richard L. Huganir, and Mark F. Bear conducted several experiments on the visual cortexes of rats in vivo.{{Cite journal|last1=Quinlan|first1=Elizabeth M.|last2=Philpot|first2=Benjamin D.|last3=Huganir|first3=Richard L.|last4=Bear|first4=Mark F.|date=April 1999|title=Rapid, experience-dependent expression of synaptic NMDA receptors in visual cortex in vivo|url=https://rdcu.be/cCeix|journal=Nature Neuroscience|language=en|volume=2|issue=4|pages=352–357|doi=10.1038/7263|pmid=10204542 |s2cid=15733520 |issn=1097-6256}} Their work has shown that the regulation of postsynaptic glutamate receptors is a mechanism of synaptic plasticity in the brain.{{Cite book|last=Bear|first=Mark F.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/897825779|title=Neuroscience: Exploring the brain|date=2016|others=Barry W. Connors, Michael A. Paradiso|isbn=978-0-7817-7817-6|edition=Fourth|location=Philadelphia|oclc=897825779}}
Quinlan began her lab in 2001, studying how experiences affect the juvenile and adult mammalian brains through visual system plasticity.{{Cite web|title=Episode 19: Elizabeth Quinlan, PhD|url=https://www.conjugate.blog/figures/episode-19quinlan|access-date=2021-11-24|website=Conjugate: Illustration and Science Blog|language=en-US}} Her research indicates that visual deprivation through dark exposure reactivates critical period plasticity in adults, which can be used to promote recovery of amblyopia, or lazy eye.Hensch TK, Quinlan EM. (2018) Critical periods in amblyopia. Vis Neurosi. 2018 doi: 10.1017/S0952523817000219. Review. Retrieved 2021-11-24. Following her lab, Quinlan and Ben Backus from SUNY College of Optometry acquired enough funding from the National Institute of Health to begin a human trial.{{Cite magazine|date=2016-12-12|title=For Better Vision, Living in the Dark|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/12/19/for-better-vision-living-in-the-dark|access-date=2021-11-29|magazine=The New Yorker|language=en-US}} The trial included two human participants who were allowed to live together in the dark for ten days. Results from this study were inclusive, although the two participants self-reported an improvement in their vision. In 2016, Quinlan became the first director of the Physiological Systems graduate program at University of Maryland.{{Cite web|title=Episode 19: Elizabeth Quinlan, PhD|url=https://www.conjugate.blog/figures/episode-19quinlan|access-date=2021-11-26|website=Conjugate: Illustration and Science Blog|language=en-US}} She is one of three co-directors of the Brain and Behavior campus initiative at University of Maryland.{{Cite web|title=Episode 19: Elizabeth Quinlan, PhD|url=https://www.conjugate.blog/figures/episode-19quinlan|access-date=2021-11-29|website=Conjugate: Illustration and Science Blog|language=en-US}}
References
{{reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Quinlan, Elizabeth}}
Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Category:University of Illinois Chicago alumni
Category:Scientists from Chicago
Category:American women neuroscientists