Gina R. Poe

Gina R. Poe is an American neuroscientist and a professor in the Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology as well as the Director of Diversity in Outreach and Education at the University of California, Los Angeles. Poe is a leader in the study of sleep and how neural activity during REM sleep is crucial to memory and learning. Her findings have elucidated that the absence of noradrenaline during sleep spindles, as well as low levels of serotonin, allow the brain to form new memories during REM as well as restructure old memory circuits to allow for more learning during subsequent waking periods. Poe's role includes the mentorship and increasing the retention of underrepresented minorities in STEM, directing several programs through both UCLA and the Society for Neuroscience to support the professional development of and provide research opportunities for minority students.

Gina R. Poe
NationalityAmerican
Alma materStanford University
University of California, Los Angeles
University of Arizona
Known forRole of REM sleep in memory
AwardsElected Head of Basic Sleep Section of the North American Sleep Research Society
Scientific career
FieldsNeuroscience
InstitutionsUniversity of California, Los Angeles

Early life and education

Poe pursued her undergraduate studies at Stanford University in 1983.[1] She majored in Human Biology and had a desire to pursue a career in public health following her graduation.[1] However, in 1987 when Poe completed her Bachelors of Science, there were no professional Public Health programs in the country, so she pursued a research technician position at the Sepulveda VA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California.[1] As a research technician at the VA, Poe realized her passion for neuroscience, specifically the biological underpinnings of sleep behavior.[1] Poe worked with Barry Sternman, a pioneer in EEG research and neurofeedback, for two years at the VA.[2] She worked on a project, sponsored by the Air Force, to explore the brain waves of pilots during landing tasks in order to provide informed brain research to select the best pilots to become instructors for the new B-2 bomber planes.[3] During her two years of conducting research as a technician, she decided to pursue a career in academia and applied to graduate school.[1]

In 1983, Poe pursued her PhD in neuroscience at the University of California, Los Angeles.[4] At UCLA, Poe studied under Ron Harper exploring the neural mechanisms underlying sleep state.[5] During her time in the Harper Lab, she helped to pioneer novel approaches to recording brain activity with coherent fiber optic imaging systems.[4] Poe and her colleagues were the first to measure the reflective properties of subcortical neurons in freely moving animals using fiber optic probes.[6] By measuring the reflective properties of neural tissue, this prevented the use of damaging lasers and provided high temporal resolution of reflection measurements as a proxy for neural activity.[6] Using this tool, Poe measured the reflected optical patterns of the hippocampus as a proxy for neural activity during sleep and wake states in cats.[7] She found that the dorsal hippocampus increased activity during REM sleep whereas neocortical brain regions decreased their activity.[7] She then explored the potential role of the hippocampus in respiratory events, sighs and apnea, in cats.[8] She found that the dorsal hippocampus seemed to increase activity before the onset of sighs and before termination of apnea which suggests that it plays a role in the regulation of inspiration during these short respiratory events.[8]

Poe completed her graduate training in 1995, and then pursued her postdoctoral work at the University of Arizona at Tucson working under the mentorship of Carol Barnes to study memory deficits due to aging.[1] Poe combined her studies of memory with her interest in sleep to forge new research directions and explore the importance of sleep in memory consolidation.[9] Through recording the firing of neurons during familiar experiences, novel experiences, and during sleep, she was able to elucidate that circuits encoding recent memories are likely restructured during REM sleep to selectively strengthen new memories and weaken older ones.[9]

At Tucson, Poe also collaborated with Bruce McNaughton and Jim Knierim to explore the effects of weightlessness in space on hippocampal maps of the environment through the NASA Neurolab project in 1998.[2] She recorded ensembles of place cells in rats using multielectrode arrays and explored whether weightlessness disrupted the ability of place cells to create cortical maps.[10] She found that hippocampal cells had abnormal firing before stably representing the surrounding environment suggesting that these cells require an adjustment period to microgravity before they can reliably interpret the surroundings.[10]  After this adaptation period, microgravity does not impact cortical map representation in the brain.[10]

Career and research

In 1998, Poe was recruited to Washington State University and joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor of Veterinary and Comparative Anatomy and an Assistant Professor of Pharmacology, and Physiology.[4] While at Washington State, Poe took the opportunity to guide the directions of the newly started undergraduate degree program in neuroscience as well as teach her first full course.[2] In 2001, Poe was recruited to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to join the faculty in the Anesthesiology Department.[11] She became an Assistant Professor of Molecular and Integrative Physiology as well as an Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology.[4] While at the University of Michigan, Poe taught both graduate and undergraduate courses, served on the Sleep Research Society’s Board of Directors, and on study section for the NIH Center for Scientific Review.[11] In 2016, Poe returned to her Alma Mater, the University of California, Los Angeles to become a Full Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology as well as the Director of Diversity in Outreach and Education.[1]

Poe is the principal investigator of the Poe Lab, and her research program has been focused on exploring the mechanisms by which the neural mechanisms of sleep support learning and memory.[12] They explore how the neural patterns that underlying learning are reactivated when animals are asleep to explore how sleep influences memory encoding.[12] Her work has elucidated that sleep is critical for the synaptic weakening component of memory consolidation.[12] Her lab continues to explore the overlap between disease processes that affect memory and the mechanisms underlying sleep-dependent memory consolidation to understand how these sleep-dependent processes are implicated in disease.[12]

The neurobiology of sleep and memory consolidation

Poe is a pioneer and leader in the field of sleep research and she probes the importance of sleep processes in learning and memory. In 2005, she discovered that rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is important for complex associative learning in rats.[13] After depriving rats of REM sleep for 4h, their improvement was delayed.[13] Poe then explored the biological underpinnings of the observed theta peaks and troughs during REM sleep.[14] She found that shift in theta rhythms might occur due to potentiation of distal dendritic synapses and depotentiation of proximal dendritic synapses over learning.[14]

Continuing to explore the effects of decreased REM sleep on memory and cognitive performance, Poe explored how performance on the water maze was affected when non-REM sleep was left intact but REM sleep was disrupted.[15] They surprisingly found that REM sleep is not essential for spatial learning, and that when REM sleep was disrupted during initial learning, reversal learning was enhanced.[15] These findings suggest that REM might help to consolidate incompletely learned items.[15]

Since it is known that antidepressants affect learning and memory, and also inhibit REM sleep, Poe and her colleague explored the biological underpinnings of how antidepressant mediated inhibition of REM sleep impacts spatial learning.[16] She found that norepinephrine reuptake inhibition reduced the spindle-rich transition-to-REM sleep state and this led to reconsolidation error for maze memory as well as impairing novel maze learning.[16] Overall, their findings suggested a new model for the purpose of each phase of REM sleep such that reconsolidation occurs during REM sleep, novel information is incorporated and consolidated during transition-to-REM sleep, and during slow-wave sleep, procedural learning is augmented.[16]

Advocacy

As the Director of Outreach and Education Programs at UCLA, Poe's responsibilities include mentoring the next generation of scientists and to increasing diversity on STEM.[1] Poe is the co-faculty director of the MARC (Maximizing Access to Research Careers) Program.[17] In this role, she works closely with minority students to help them seek and use the STEM resources on campus to increase retention of minority students in STEM.[17] She helps her students forge a path to graduate school despite the extra barriers they may face.[17]

Poe is a member of the Society for Neuroscience Professional Development Committee which serves to provide mentorship and career enhancement opportunities in the field of neuroscience, with an emphasis on diversity.[18] Poe also co-directs the Neuroscience Scholars Program through the Society for Neuroscience which is a two-year online program for underrepresented graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to support their professional development and jump-start their careers.[19] Poe also organizes and teaches the Summer Program in Neuroscience Excellence and Success courses which trains underrepresented neuroscientists to become leaders in the field.[20]

Awards and honors
  • 2017 Association of American Universities mini-grant Towards Improving Undergraduate STEM Education[21]
  • Elected Head of Basic Sleep Section of the North American Sleep Research Society[22]
  • Rackham Interdisciplinary Workshop Grants[4]

Select media
  • 2020 “Sleep difficulties are perfectly normal for babies, study confirms” Reuters Health News[23]
  • 2019 Featured in Netflix “The Mind Explained” Series[24]
  • 2019 “Duelling Brain Waves Anchor or Erase Learning During Sleep”[25]
  • 2018 National Geographic “Sleep Science”[26]
  • 2013 Scientific American “Faulty Sleep Mechanism Might Cause Trauma to Linger”[27]

Select publications
  • Swift Kevin M., Keus Karina , Echeverria Christy Gonzalez, Cabrera Yesenia , Jimenez Janelly , Holloway Jasmine , Clawson Brittany C., Poe Gina R. 2019. Sex differences within sleep in gonadally intact rats. Sleep 43 (5) [28]
  • Swift Kevin M., Gross Brooks A., Frazer Michelle A., Bauer David S., Clark Kyle J.D., Vazey Elena M., Aston-Jones Gary , Li Yong , Pickering Anthony E., Sara Susan J., Poe Gina R. 2018. Abnormal Locus Coeruleus Sleep Activity Alters Sleep Signatures of Memory Consolidation and Impairs Place Cell Stability and Spatial Memory. Curr. Biol. 28: 3599-3609.e4[28]
  • Emrick JJ, Gross BA, Riley BT, Poe GR. 2016. Different Simultaneous Sleep States in the Hippocampus and Neocortex. Sleep. PMID 27748240 [28]
  • Watts A, Gritton HJ, Sweigart J, Poe GR. 2012. Antidepressant suppression of non-REM sleep spindles and REM sleep impairs hippocampus-dependent learning while augmenting striatum-dependent learning. The Journal of Neuroscience : the Official Journal of the Society For Neuroscience. 32: 13411-20. PMID 23015432 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0170-12.2012 [28]
  • Pal D, Booth V, Poe GR. 2011. Sleep-related hippocampal activation: Implications for spatial memory consolidation Rapid Eye Movement Sleep: Regulation and Function. 319-327. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511921179.034 [28]
  • Gross BA, Walsh CM, Turakhia AA, Booth V, Mashour GA, Poe GR. 2009. Open-source logic-based automated sleep scoring software using electrophysiological recordings in rats. Journal of Neuroscience Methods. 184: 10-8. PMID 19615408 DOI: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2009.07.009 [28]
  • Poe GR, Booth V, Bjorness TE, Riley BT, Watts AC. 2009. Sleep is for unfinished business growing evidence that sleep is important for learning and memory Current Advances in Sleep Biology. 141-176.[28]
  • Booth V, Poe GR. 2006. Input source and strength influences overall firing phase of model hippocampal CA1 pyramidal cells during theta: relevance to REM sleep reactivation and memory consolidation. Hippocampus. 16: 161-73. PMID 16411243 DOI: 10.1002/hipo.20143 [28]
  • Bjorness TE, Riley BT, Tysor MK, Poe GR. 2005. REM restriction persistently alters strategy used to solve a spatial task. Learning & Memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.). 12: 352-9. PMID 15897251 DOI: 10.1101/lm.84805 [28]
  • Poe GR, Thompson CM, Riley BT, Tysor MK, Bjorness TE, Steinhoff BP, Ferluga ED. 2002. A spatial memory task appropriate for electrophysiological recordings. Journal of Neuroscience Methods. 121: 65-74. PMID 12393162 DOI: 10.1016/S0165-0270(02)00233-9 [28]
  • Knierim JJ, McNaughton BL, Poe GR. 2000. Three-dimensional spatial selectivity of hippocampal neurons during space flight. Nature Neuroscience. 3: 209-10. PMID 10700250 DOI: 10.1038/72910 [28]
  • Poe GR, Nitz DA, Rector DM, Kristensen MP, Harper RM. 1996. Concurrent reflectance imaging and microdialysis in the freely behaving cat. Journal of Neuroscience Methods. 65: 143-9. PMID 8740591 DOI: 10.1016/0165-0270(95)00156-5 [28]
  • Poe GR, Kristensen MP, Rector DM, Harper RM. 1996. Hippocampal activity during transient respiratory events in the freely behaving cat. Neuroscience. 72: 39-48. PMID 8730704 DOI: 10.1016/0306-4522(95)00525-0 [28]
  • Poe GR, Rector DM, Harper RM. 1994. Hippocampal reflected optical patterns during sleep and waking states in the freely behaving cat. The Journal of Neuroscience : the Official Journal of the Society For Neuroscience. 14: 2933-42. PMID 8182449 [28]
  • Poe GR, Suyenobu BY, Bolstad CA, Endsley MR, Sterman, MB. EEG correlates of critical decision-making in computer simulated combat. Proc. 6th Ann. Int. Conf. Aviat. Psychol., Columbus, OH; pp. 751–758; 1991.[28]

References
  1. "Dr. Gina Poe". Stories of WiN. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  2. "Lab Members". Poe Lab. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  3. "Brainwave Basics For Peak Achievement Training". peakachievement.com. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  4. "umich.edu" (PDF). umich.edu. 2007. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  5. "Ronald Harper, Ph.D. | Neurobiology Department at UCLA". www.neurobio.ucla.edu. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  6. Rector, D. M.; Poe, G. R.; Harper, R. M. (1993), Dirnagl, Ulrich; Villringer, Arno; Einhäupl, Karl M. (eds.), "Fiber Optic Imaging of Subcortical Neural Tissue in Freely Behaving Animals", Optical Imaging of Brain Function and Metabolism, Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, Springer US, pp. 81–86, doi:10.1007/978-1-4899-2468-1_9, ISBN 978-1-4899-2468-1, retrieved June 6, 2020
  7. Gr, Poe; Dm, Rector; Rm, Harper (May 1994). "Hippocampal Reflected Optical Patterns During Sleep and Waking States in the Freely Behaving Cat". The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience. PMID 8182449. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  8. Poe, G. R.; Kristensen, M. P.; Rector, D. M.; Harper, R. M. (May 1, 1996). "Hippocampal activity during transient respiratory events in the freely behaving cat". Neuroscience. 72 (1): 39–48. doi:10.1016/0306-4522(95)00525-0. ISSN 0306-4522.
  9. Poe, Gina R.; Nitz, Douglas A.; McNaughton, Bruce L.; Barnes, Carol A. (February 7, 2000). "Experience-dependent phase-reversal of hippocampal neuron firing during REM sleep". Brain Research. 855 (1): 176–180. doi:10.1016/S0006-8993(99)02310-0. ISSN 0006-8993.
  10. Knierim, James J.; McNaughton, Bruce L.; Poe, Gina R. (March 2000). "Three-dimensional spatial selectivity of hippocampal neurons during space flight". Nature Neuroscience. 3 (3): 209–210. doi:10.1038/72910. ISSN 1546-1726.
  11. "ginapoe". mcubed.umich.edu. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  12. "Poe Lab". Poe Lab. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  13. Bjorness, Theresa E.; Riley, Brett T.; Tysor, Michael K.; Poe, Gina R. (May 1, 2005). "REM restriction persistently alters strategy used to solve a spatial task". Learning & Memory. 12 (3): 352–359. doi:10.1101/lm.84805. ISSN 1072-0502. PMID 15897251.
  14. Booth, Victoria; Poe, Gina R. (2006). "Input source and strength influences overall firing phase of model hippocampal CA1 pyramidal cells during theta: Relevance to REM sleep reactivation and memory consolidation". Hippocampus. 16 (2): 161–173. doi:10.1002/hipo.20143. ISSN 1098-1063. PMC 1401491. PMID 16411243.
  15. Walsh, Christine M.; Booth, Victoria; Poe, Gina R. (July 1, 2011). "Spatial and reversal learning in the Morris water maze are largely resistant to six hours of REM sleep deprivation following training". Learning & Memory. 18 (7): 422–434. doi:10.1101/lm.2099011. ISSN 1072-0502. PMID 21677190.
  16. Watts, Alain; Gritton, Howard J.; Sweigart, Jamie; Poe, Gina R. (September 26, 2012). "Antidepressant Suppression of Non-REM Sleep Spindles and REM Sleep Impairs Hippocampus-Dependent Learning While Augmenting Striatum-Dependent Learning". Journal of Neuroscience. 32 (39): 13411–13420. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0170-12.2012. ISSN 0270-6474. PMID 23015432.
  17. "Student group seeks to support minority STEM students, boost diversity". Daily Bruin. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  18. "Professional Development Committee". www.sfn.org. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  19. "Neuroscience Scholars Program". www.sfn.org. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  20. "Summer Program in Neuroscience, Excellence and Success (SPINES)". www.mbl.edu. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  21. "UCLA to enhance undergraduate STEM education". UCLA. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  22. Andrew Sampson. "Conversations With Our Founders". Sleep Research Society. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  23. "Sleep difficulties are perfectly normal for babies, study confirms". Reuters. February 12, 2020. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  24. "The Mind, Explained | Netflix Official Site". www.netflix.com. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  25. Renken, Elena. "Dueling Brain Waves Anchor or Erase Learning During Sleep". Quanta Magazine. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  26. "While We Sleep, Our Mind Goes on an Amazing Journey". Magazine. July 17, 2018. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  27. Sutherland, Stephani. "Faulty Sleep Mechanism Might Cause Trauma to Linger". Scientific American. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  28. "Gina R. Poe - Publications". neurotree.org. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.