Committee Members
Past Committee Members
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.: Sara, Susan J.

Past Schools Committee Member

Susan J. Sara
CNRS-UMR 7252
Collège de France
75005 PARIS
France
Phone: 33 1 44271636
33 1 46336473
E-mail: sjsara@ccr.jussieu.fr

Present position

Susan J. Sara is a Director of Research at the CNRS in France, head of the Laboratory of Neuromodulation and Cognitive Processes, University P. & M. Curie.

After obtaining a degree in Physiological Psychology from Sarah Lawrence College (New York), SJS studied Phenomenological Psychology and Neurosciences at the University of Louvain (Belgium), obtaining a Ph.D. in 1976. This was followed by post-doctoral work at Oxford University with the late Professor J. Gray and New York University Medical School (Dept of Neurology).

Recruited by the CNRS in 1981, her research addresses the question of how attention, motivation and emotion are mediated in the nervous system to influence short and long term memory processes. Focus is on neuromodulatory systems, especially noradrenaline, using a multidisciplinary approach - single unit recording in behaving rats, pharmacology and immunocytochemistry, always in close conjunction with behavioural analysis. The temporal dynamics of long term memory consolidation, retrieval and reconsolidation has been an important part of this work over the years.

In addition to French funding, ESF, NSF (USA) and Volkswagenstifftung have provided support for several international collaborations.

SJS is author of nearly 100 original papers and reviews, recipient of a research fellowship from the American Association of University Women and the Eloise Gerry Foundation Prize. SJS was awarded the Montyon Prize in 1998 from the French Academy of Sciences. Editor-in-chief of the Journal Neural Plasticity and consultant to the European commission for the 5th and 6th PCRDT, she was a member of the scientific advisory board of the ESF-Euresco conference series on Neurobiology of Learning and Memory and was chair of the 1998 Conference of that series. She was a member of the Program committee for the FENS 2002 meeting and again for the 2006 Forum. SJS has served on the IBRO council, from 1996 until present, the FENS council from 2000-2003. She was Secretary of European Brain and Behaviour Society from 1996-2001 and President of that Society from 2001-2003.

Selected Publications

  • Sara, SJ & Hervé-Minvielle, A. Inhibitory influence of frontal cortex on locus coeruleus. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1995, 92, 6032-6035.
  • Przybyslawski, J. & Sara, SJ Reconsolidation after reactivation of memory. Behavioural Brain Research, 1997, 84, 241-246.
  • Kitchigina, V. Vankov, A. Harley, C. & Sara, SJ; Novelty-elicited, norepinephrine-dependent enhancement of excitability in the rat dentate gyrus. European Journal of Neuroscience, 1997, 9, 41-47.
  • Sara, SJ Learning by Neurones: role of attention, reinforcement and behaviour. C.R.Acad Sci, 1998, 321, 193-198.
  • Roullet, P. Bourne, R., Moricard, Y. Stewart, M. & Sara, SJ Learning-induced plasticity of NMDA receptors is task and region-specific, Neuroscience, 1999, 89, 1145-1150.
  • Przybyslawski, J , Roullet, P. , Sara, SJ Beta noradrenergic blockade attenuates memory after its reactivation.Jounal of Neuroscience, 1999, 19, 6623-6628.
  • SARA, SJ., Roullet, P., Przybyslawski, J., Consolidation of memory for odour-reward association: beta adrenergic receptor involvement in the late phase. Learning & Memory, 1999, 6,88-96.
  • Sara, SJ Retrieval and reconsolidation : toward a neurobiology of remembering. Learning & Memory, 2000, 7, 73-84.
  • Sara, S.J. Strengthening the shaky trace through retrieval. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2000, 1, 212-214.
  • Shinba, T. Briois,L. & Sara, S.J. Spontaneous and auditory-evoked activity of the medial agranular cortex as a function of arousal state in the freely moving rat: interaction with locus coeruleus activity, Brain Research, 2000; 887, 293-300.
  • Tronel, S. & Sara, S.J. Mapping of olfactory memory circuits: region specific c-fos activation after odor-reward associative learning or after its retrieval. Learning & Memory 2002, 9:4.
  • Bouret, S. & Sara, SJ Locus coeruleus activation modulates firing rate and temporal organization of odor-induced single cell responses in rat piriform cortex. European Journal of Neuroscience, 2002.
  • Bouret, Duval, Onat, Sara SJ Activation of Locus Coeruleus by the Central Nucleus of the Amygdala, Journal of Neuroscience, 2004.
  • Tronel S. Feenstra, M. & Sara, S.J. Noradrenergic action in the prelimbic cortex in the late stages of memory consolidation, Learning & Memory, 2004, 453-458.
  • Bouret, S. & Sara, SJ Reward expectation, attention, and locus coeruleus-medial frontal cortex interplay during learning, EJN, 2004, 20, 791-802.
  • Torres-Garcia, M. Lelong, J & Sara, SJ ReConsolidation after remembering requires NMDA receptors, 2005, Learning & Memory, 12, 18-22.
  • Bouret, S & Sara, SJ Network reset: a simplified, overarching theory of noadrenergic function, Trends in Neuroscience, 2005, 11.