Rafael Yuste

Rafael Yuste
MD, PhD
Born (1963-04-25)April 25, 1963[1]
Madrid[2]
Residence New York City
Nationality Spanish
Citizenship Spanish, US
Alma mater Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Rockefeller University
Known for calcium imaging technique, brain activity map
Scientific career
Fields neurobiology
Institutions Columbia University
Thesis Optical studies of calcium dynamics in developing neocortical neurons
Doctoral advisors Torsten Wiesel, Lawrence C. Katz

Rafael Yuste (born April 25, 1963 in Madrid) is a Spanish neurobiologist and one of the initiators of the BRAIN Initiative announced in 2013.[3]

Biography

Yuste's interest in neuroscience arose early, inspired by books like Santiago Ramón y Cajal's Los Tónicos de la Voluntad: Reglas y consejos sobre investigación científica and supported by his parents.[2][4] He studied medicine at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (1982-1987). Perceiving the treatment and understanding of mental diseases as "primitive" Yuste decided that instead of practicing medicine he would work on laying the scientific basis for future treatments.[5] He worked for two summers (1985/86) in the laboratory of the Nobel laureate Sydney Brenner at the University of Cambridge, but the budget cuts of Margaret Thatcher's government made him look for PhD opportunities in the United States.[2][6] In 1987 he was admitted to Rockefeller University and joined the group of Nobel laureate Torsten Wiesel working with Lawrence C. Katz. There he developed the calcium imaging technique to measure and monitor neural activity.[2] The technique is based on the fact that when an electric signal depolarizes a neuron, the Calcium channels are activated allowing Ca2+ ions to enter the cell. If one brings a calcium-sensitive dye into (a part of) the brain, one can detect under the microscope when a neuron is active. The technique is detailed in Yuste's doctoral thesis Optical studies of calcium dynamics in developing neocortical neurons (1992), which was directed by Wiesel and Katz. It became one of the pillars of neurobiology.

He then moved to David Tank's group at Bell Laboratories where he worked four years as a postdoc, combining the calcium imaging with the two-photon microscope invented by Winfried Denk and becoming convinced of the importance of neural networks (rather than just single neurons) to understand the functioning of the brain (connectionism).[2]

In 1996 Yuste became assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, obtaining tenure in 2002 and becoming full professor in 2006. Since 2004 he is also co-director of the Kavli Institute for Brain Science at Columbia University and since 2014 directing the.[7]

In 2013 he received the NIH Director's Pioneer Award with a grant of 2.5 million USD to fund research to test the hypothesis of the cortex as a random circuit using novel two-photon imaging methods in a large-scale study of the mouse cortical microcircuit.[8][9]

As of 2018 Yuste has published more than 200 papers.[10] According to Google Scholar he has been cited more than 25,000 times for an h index of 87.[11]

Yuste dedicates several weeks per year to the Cajal Institute of the Technical University of Madrid and was and is in the scientific advisory board of several institutes, foundations, and companies in the US, Spain, and Israel [1][12] the Fundación Gaeda,[13] the Allen Institute,[14] the Biophysics Institute BIOFISIKA a joint Research Centre of the Spanish National Research Council and the University of the Basque Country or Harvard's Conte Center [15] as well as in the editorial board of numerous journal, among them Frontiers in Neural Circuits (chief editor, 2006-2013) and Cerebral Cortex (associate editor since 1998).

Brain Activity Map and BRAIN Initiative

In 2011 at a meeting with funding agencies, Yuste proposed the goal of developing technologies to "record every spike from every neuron" and then co-authored together with George M. Church, Paul Alivisatos, Ralph Greenspan, and Michael Roukes a white paper to elaborate this idea as a large-scale scientific project (then called the "Brain Activity Map Project") modelled on the Human Genome Project. Two years later then president Barack Obama announced the US BRAIN Initiative that now funds neuroscience research in hundreds of laboratories and is slated to last until 2025.[16][17][2] Yuste has warned against spreading the funds of the initiative too thin and argued that a focused effort is required to develop the technologies needed for large-scale, real-time brain imaging with single-neuron resolution that would be made available at observatory-like centers to the scientific community.[18][19]

Selected honors and awards

Selected publications

Primary research

  • Dupre, Christophe; Yuste, Rafael (2017). "Non-overlapping Neural Networks in Hydra vulgaris". Current Biology. 27 (8): 1085–1097. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2017.02.049.
  • Packer, A.M., Peterka, D.S., Hirtz, J.J., Prakash, R., Deisseroth, K. and Yuste, R. (2012). "Two-photon optogenetics of dendritic spines and neural circuits". Nature Methods. 9: 1202–1205. doi:10.1038/nmeth.2249. PMC 3518588.
  • Poskanzer, K.; Yuste, R. (2011). "Astrocytic regulation of cortical UP states". PNAS. 45: 18453–18458. doi:10.1073/pnas.1112378108.
  • Nikolenko, Volodymyr; Poskanzer, Kira E.; Yuste, Rafael (2007). "Two-photon photostimulation and imaging of neural circuits". Nature Methods. 4: 943–950. doi:10.1038/nmeth1105.
  • Ikegaya, Yuji; Aaron, Gloster; Cossart, Rosa; Aronov, Dmitriy; Lampl, Ilan; Ferster, David; Yuste, Rafael (2004). "Synfire Chains and Cortical Songs: Temporal Modules of Cortical Activity". Science. 304 (5670): 559–564. doi:10.1126/science.1093173.
  • Yuste, Rafael; Denk, Winfried (1995). "Dendritic spines as basic functional units of neuronal integration". Nature. 375: 682–684. doi:10.1038/375682a0.
  • Yuste, R.; Katz, L. C. (1991). "Control of postsynaptic calcium influx in developing neocortex by excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters" (PDF). Neuron. 6: 333–344. doi:10.1016/0896-6273(91)90243-S.

Reviews

  • Yang, Weijian; Yuste, Rafael (2017). "In vivo imaging of neural activity". Nature Methods. 14: 349–359. doi:10.1038/nmeth.4230.
  • Holcman, David; Yuste, Rafael (2015). "The new nanophysiology: regulation of ionic flow in neuronal subcompartments". Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 16: 685–692. doi:10.1038/nrn4022.
  • Seung, S.; Yuste, R. (2012). "Neural Networks". In Kandel; et al. Principles of Neural Science.
  • Peterka, Darcy S.; Takahashi, Hiroto; Yuste, Rafael (2011). "Imaging Voltage in Neurons". Neuron. 69 (1): 9–21. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2010.12.010.
  • Yuste, R. (2011). "Dendritic Spines and Distributed Circuits". Neuron. 71: 772–781. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2011.07.024.
  • Yuste, Rafael; Bonhoeffer, Tobias (2001). "Morphological changes in dendritic spines associated with long-term synaptic plasticity". Annual Review of Neuroscience. 24: 1071–89. doi:10.1146/annurev.neuro.24.1.1071.

Policy and commentary

  • Yuste, Rafael; Goering, Sara; Agüera y Arcas, Blaise; et al. (2017-11-09). "Four ethical priorities for neurotechnologies and AI". Nature. 551 (7679): 159–163. doi:10.1038/551159a.
  • Yuste, Rafael; Church, George M. (2014). "The new century of the brain" (pdf). Scientific American. 310: 38–45. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0314-38.
  • Alivisatos, A. P.; Chun, M.; Church, G. M.; Greenspan, R. J.; Roukes, M. L.; Yuste, R. (2012). "The Brain Activity Map Project and the Challenge of Functional Connectomics". Neuron. 74: 970–974. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2012.06.006.
  • "Yuste Lab at Columbia University". Retrieved 2018-03-01.
  • "Rafael Yuste in the "Neurotree" (Academic Genealogy)". Retrieved 2018-01-30.

References

  1. 1 2 "CV Rafael Yuste" (pdf). Universidad de Cuenca. 2017. Retrieved 2018-01-30.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Rafael Yuste (2017). "The Origins of the BRAIN Initiative: A Personal Journey" (pdf). Cell. 171 (4): 726–735.
  3. ↑ María Ramírez (2013-04-02). "Obama presenta con el español Rafael Yuste su proyecto para estudiar el cerebro". El Mundo.
  4. ↑ "El Mundo: BAM" (PDF).
  5. ↑ "El científico español que convenció a Obama de descifrar el cerebro humano" (in Spanish). BBC. 2013-04-04. Retrieved 2018-02-27.
  6. ↑ "Rafael Yuste: "La misma tecnología que curará la esquizofrenia servirá para manipular la mente" (interview with Yuste)" (in Spanish). La Información. 2013. Retrieved 2018-02-27. A mí en Inglaterra me pillaron los recortes de la Thatcher y terminé en EEUU [...].
  7. ↑ "Columbia Establishes NeuroTechnology Center, Latest Step in Commitment to Interdisciplinary Neuroscience". 2014. Retrieved 2018-03-01.
  8. ↑ "FUNCTIONAL CONNECTOMICS OF THE NEOCORTICAL MICROCIRCUIT". nih.gov. Retrieved 2018-02-28.
  9. ↑ "Dos millones de euros para el español que trazará el mapa del cerebro humano" (in Spanish). El Mundo. 2013-09-30. Retrieved 2013-09-30.
  10. ↑ "PubMed search results Yuste R[Author]". nih.gov.
  11. ↑ "Rafael Yuste". Google Scholar.
  12. ↑ "El mayor proyecto neurocientífico de la Historia" (in Spanish). El País. 2013-03-11.
  13. ↑ "Scientific Advisory Council" (in Spanish). Fundación GADEA por la Ciencia. Retrieved 2018-02-27.
  14. ↑ "Brain Science Cell Types and Connections Advisory Council". Allen Institute. Retrieved 2018-02-27.
  15. ↑ "People: SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD". harvard.edu. Retrieved 2018-02-27.
  16. ↑ "TED talk about the beginning and importance of the BRAIN initiative". 2013. Retrieved 2018-02-27.
  17. ↑ "The observer corps". The Economist. 2015-11-14. Retrieved 2018-02-27.
  18. ↑ Yuste, Rafael; Church, George M. (2014). "The new century of the brain". Scientific American. 310 (3): 40. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0314-38.
  19. ↑ "Obama decepciona a 'su' neurocientífico español" (in Spanish). El Mundo. 2014-02-18. Retrieved 2018-02-27.
  20. ↑ "Rafael Yuste". Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation. Retrieved 1 August 2018.
  21. ↑ Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. "XLVII Lección Conmemorativa Jiménez Díaz" (in Spanish). Retrieved 2015-05-29.
  22. ↑ "Académicos: Prof. RAFAEL YUSTE". Real Academia de Ciencias. Retrieved 2018-02-28.
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