Michael Stryker Explained

Michael P. Stryker
Birth Date:16 June 1947
Birth Place:Savannah, GA
Nationality:American
Alma Mater:Deep Springs College
University of Michigan (BA)
MIT (PhD)
Occupation:Neurobiologist
Employer:University of California, San Francisco

Michael Paul Stryker (born June 16, 1947) is an American neuroscientist specializing in studies of how spontaneous neural activity organizes connections in the developing mammalian brain, and for research on the organization, development, and plasticity of the visual system in the ferret and the mouse.

Early life

Stryker was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1947 to George B. Stryker, Jr., a civil engineer, and Estelle R Stryker (née Nulman), a nurse.  He studied liberal arts at Deep Springs College and then the University of Michigan, where he graduated in philosophy and mathematics.  After college, he joined the Peace Corps to work on water development in Kenya .[1]  

Professional education and career

In graduate school he studied neurophysiology at the new Department of Psychology and Brain Science (now Brain and Cognitive Sciences) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, first working with Peter Schiller on the coding of eye movement and vision in the mammalian superior colliculus.[2] [3]  He and Schiller created the first computer-driven optical display capable of randomly interleaving sharply focused bar and edge stimuli and recording the responses of neurons in the visual system to measure their tuning properties .  With fellow student Helen Sherk, he used this apparatus to demonstrate innately selective responses in the visual cortex, confirming earlier qualitative studies of David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel, and to reveal that the effect of restricted rearing was to preserve innately selective responses rather than to instruct the development of neurons to reflect visual experience.[4] [5]  He received his Ph.D. in 1975.

Stryker pursued postdoctoral research in Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School under Torsten Wiesel and David Hubel, working also with fellows Carla Shatz, Simon LeVay, and Bill Harris.[6]  With Shatz and Peter Kirwood, he taught a summer course at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.[7]

He joined the nascent Neuroscience Program[8]  at the University of California, San Francisco as a member of the Department of Physiology.  There, his laboratory demonstrated a role for spontaneous neural activity, as distinguished from visual experience, in the prenatal and postnatal development of the central visual system.  He and his students created mathematical models of cortical development.[9] [10]  He pioneered the use of the ferret for studies of the central visual system and used this species to delineate the role of neural activity in the development of orientation selectivity and cortical columns.  His laboratory revealed a role for slow-wave sleep in cortical plasticity [11] and pioneered the modern use of the mouse visual system,[12] demonstrating rapid activity-dependent plasticity during a defined critical period and delineating distinct molecular mechanisms responsible for temporally distinct phases of plasticity.[13] [14]  In collaboration with the Feldheim group at University of California, Santa Cruz, he revealed the interaction between neural activity and molecular signaling mechanisms responsible for the formation of azimuth maps in visual cortex and superior colliculus and their connections [15]  His and the Alvarez-Buylla laboratory discovered that transplantation of embryonic inhibitory neurons into postnatal visual cortex induces a second critical period of juvenile plasticity.[16]  He and his colleagues made the discovery of the regulation of visual cortical state by locomotion and delineated much of the neural circuitry responsible.[17] [18]  At UCSF, he has authored over 150 publications.[19]

Personal life

He has been married to Barbara Poetter since 1978.  They have 4 children born between 1980 and 1995.  They live in Marin County north of San Francisco.

Awards, recognition, and public service

Stryker is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.  He holds the William Francis Ganong[20] Chair of Physiology at UCSF and has held the Cattedra Galileiana (Galileo Galilei Chair of Science) [21] at Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa.  He has received the W. Alden Spencer Award from Columbia University, the Pepose Vision Sciences Award [22] from Brandeis University, the Stein Innovator Award from Research to Prevent Blindness, the Krieg Cortical Kudos Discoverer Award [23] from the Cajal Club, and the Ralph W. Gerard Prize in Neuroscience from the Society for Neuroscience.[24]  He has served on and chaired the board of trustees of Deep Springs College, CA, and serves on the board of directors of the Allen Institute in Seattle, WA.

Notes and References

  1. Stryker. Michael. 2020. Chance and Choice: Recollections of a life in science. The History of Neuroscience in Autobiography. 11. 372–423.
  2. Schiller. P. H.. 1972. The role of the monkey superior colliculus in eye movement and vision. Investigative Ophthalmology. 11. 6. 451–460. 0020-9988. 4624291.
  3. Schiller. P. H.. Stryker. M.. 1972. Single-unit recording and stimulation in superior colliculus of the alert rhesus monkey. Journal of Neurophysiology. 35. 6. 915–924. 10.1152/jn.1972.35.6.915. 0022-3077. 4631839.
  4. Stryker. M. P.. Sherk. H.. Leventhal. A. G.. Hirsch. H. V.. 1978. Physiological consequences for the cat's visual cortex of effectively restricting early visual experience with oriented contours. Journal of Neurophysiology. 41. 4. 896–909. 10.1152/jn.1978.41.4.896. 0022-3077. 681993.
  5. Book: Stryker, Michael. Development of the visual system. 1991. MIT Press. Lam, Dominic Man-Kit., Shatz, Carla J., Retina Research Foundation (U.S.), Retina Research Foundation (U.S.). Symposium (3rd : 1990 : Woodlands, Tex.). 0-262-12154-9. Cambridge, Mass.. 454–462. Activity-dependent reorganization of afferents in the developing mammalian visual system. 22422712.
  6. Harris. W. A.. 1981. Neural activity and development. Annual Review of Physiology. 43. 689–710. 10.1146/annurev.ph.43.030181.003353. 0066-4278. 6111291.
  7. Web site: Davidson. Keay. Writer. Chronicle Science. 2004-07-30. FRANCIS CRICK / 1916-2004 / Co-discoverer of DNA structure dies / Father of the biotech revolution. 2020-08-09. SFGate.
  8. Web site: About Neuroscience Graduate Program. 2020-08-09. Neuroscience Graduate Program. en.
  9. Book: Jubak, Jim.. In the image of the brain : breaking the barrier between the human mind and intelligent machines. 1992. Little, Brown. 0-316-47555-6. 1st. Boston. 24792137.
  10. Miller. K. D.. Keller. J. B.. Stryker. M. P.. 1989-08-11. Ocular dominance column development: analysis and simulation. Science. 245. 4918. 605–615. 10.1126/science.2762813. 0036-8075. 2762813. 1989Sci...245..605M.
  11. Web site: 2001-04-30. Cat naps reveal that sleeping brain is actually working hard. 2020-08-09. SFChronicle.com. en-US.
  12. Gordon. J. A.. Stryker. M. P.. 1996-05-15. Experience-dependent plasticity of binocular responses in the primary visual cortex of the mouse. The Journal of Neuroscience. 16. 10. 3274–3286. 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.16-10-03274.1996. 0270-6474. 6579137. 8627365.
  13. Espinosa. J. Sebastian. Stryker. Michael P.. 2012-07-26. Development and plasticity of the primary visual cortex. Neuron. 75. 2. 230–249. 10.1016/j.neuron.2012.06.009. 1097-4199. 3612584. 22841309.
  14. Web site: Stix. Gary. New Clues to Just How Much the Adult Brain Can Change. 2020-08-09. Scientific American Blog Network. en.
  15. Owens. Melinda T.. Feldheim. David A.. Stryker. Michael P.. Triplett. Jason W.. 2015-09-23. Stochastic Interaction between Neural Activity and Molecular Cues in the Formation of Topographic Maps. Neuron. 87. 6. 1261–1273. 10.1016/j.neuron.2015.08.030. 1097-4199. 4583656. 26402608.
  16. Southwell. Derek G.. Nicholas. Cory R.. Basbaum. Allan I.. Stryker. Michael P.. Kriegstein. Arnold R.. Rubenstein. John L.. Alvarez-Buylla. Arturo. 2014-04-11. Interneurons from embryonic development to cell-based therapy. Science. 344. 6180. 1240622. 10.1126/science.1240622. 1095-9203. 4056344. 24723614.
  17. Drew. Liam. 75135014. 2019-03-12. The mouse in the video game. Nature. en. 567. 7747. 158–160. 10.1038/d41586-019-00791-w. 30862929. 2019Natur.567..158D. free.
  18. Web site: Calderone. Julia. 10 Big Ideas in 10 Years of Brain Science. 2020-08-09. Scientific American. en.
  19. Web site: Stryker Reprints. 2020-08-09. brain.cin.ucsf.edu.
  20. News: Hevesi. Dennis. 2008-01-12. W. F. Ganong, 83, Expert in Brain's Control of Body, Dies. en-US. The New York Times. 2020-08-09. 0362-4331.
  21. 1994. Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Classe di Lettere e Filosofia. 24. 4. 1031–1085. 24308042. 0392-095X. Notiziario della Scuola Normale Superiore.
  22. Web site: Hamood. Al. 2012-02-22. Michael Stryker to deliver Pepose Vision Sciences Award Lecture on March 12. 2020-08-09. blogs.brandeis.edu. en-US.
  23. Web site: 2023-12-22. Krieg Cortical Kudos. www.cajalclub.org. en-US.
  24. Web site: 2023-12-22. Pioneering Visions: Michael Stryker's Contributions to Understanding the Visual Cortex. www.news-medical.net. en-US.