Mark Bear

About

Dr. Mark Bear is a Picower Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an investigator at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory. His laboratory is interested in how the brain is modified by experience, deprivation, and disease. He uses electrophysiological, biochemical, molecular, behavioral, and anatomical methods to examine the synaptic modifications that form the neurobiological basis of learning and memory. His research focuses on understanding developmental plasticity in the visual cortex and other forms of experience-dependent synaptic modification in the visual cortex and hippocampus. Dr. Bear has described novel forms of procedural learning in the visual system and investigated synaptic function in models of fragile X syndrome and other autism spectrum disorders. His work has contributed to understanding how experience and deprivation modify synaptic connections, with implications for memory, brain development, recovery after damage, and neurological and psychiatric diseases.

Research topics

• Neuroscience
• Biology
• Biophysics
• Physics
• Computer Science
• Internal medicine
• Telecommunications
• Biological system
• Biochemistry
• Genetics

Selected publications

• Microglia enable mature perineuronal nets disassembly upon anesthetic ketamine exposure or 60-Hz light entrainment in the healthy brain

  Cell Reports · 2021 · 148 citations

  Perineuronal nets (PNNs), components of the extracellular matrix, preferentially coat parvalbumin-positive interneurons and constrain critical-period plasticity in the adult cerebral cortex. Current strategies to remove PNN are long-lasting, invasive, and trigger neuropsychiatric symptoms. Here, we apply repeated anesthetic ketamine as a method with minimal behavioral effect. We find that this paradigm strongly reduces PNN coating in the healthy adult brain and promotes juvenile-like plasticity.…

  DOI

• Spatial Multiplexing of Fluorescent Reporters for Imaging Signaling Network Dynamics

  Cell · 2020 · 73 citations

  In order to analyze how a signal transduction network converts cellular inputs into cellular outputs, ideally one would measure the dynamics of many signals within the network simultaneously. We found that, by fusing a fluorescent reporter to a pair of self-assembling peptides, it could be stably clustered within cells at random points, distant enough to be resolved by a microscope but close enough to spatially sample the relevant biology. Because such clusters, which we call signaling reporter…

  DOI

• Stimulus-Selective Response Plasticity in Primary Visual Cortex: Progress and Puzzles

  Frontiers in Neural Circuits · 2022-01-31 · 31 citations

  reviewOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Stimulus-selective response plasticity (SRP) is a robust and lasting modification of primary visual cortex (V1) that occurs in response to exposure to novel visual stimuli. It is readily observed as a pronounced increase in the magnitude of visual evoked potentials (VEPs) recorded in response to phase-reversing grating stimuli in neocortical layer 4. The expression of SRP at the individual neuron level is equally robust, but the qualities vary depending on the neuronal type and how activity is m…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Electrophysiological Signatures of Visual Recognition Memory across All Layers of Mouse V1

  Journal of Neuroscience · 2023-09-15 · 22 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  In mouse primary visual cortex (V1), familiar stimuli evoke significantly altered responses when compared with novel stimuli. This stimulus-selective response plasticity (SRP) was described originally as an increase in the magnitude of visual evoked potentials (VEPs) elicited in layer 4 (L4) by familiar phase-reversing grating stimuli. SRP is dependent on NMDA receptors (NMDARs) and has been hypothesized to reflect potentiation of thalamocortical (TC) synapses in L4. However, recent evidence ind…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Human deprivation amblyopia: treatment insights from animal models

  Frontiers in Neuroscience · 2023-09-19 · 17 citations

  articleOpen access

  Amblyopia is a common visual impairment that develops during the early years of postnatal life. It emerges as a sequela to eye misalignment, an imbalanced refractive state, or obstruction to form vision. All of these conditions prevent normal vision and derail the typical development of neural connections within the visual system. Among the subtypes of amblyopia, the most debilitating and recalcitrant to treatment is deprivation amblyopia. Nevertheless, human studies focused on advancing the sta…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Training Program in the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory

  NIH · $1.7M · 2007–2017

• Validating a novel target for correction of pathophysiology in fragile X and TSC

  NIH · $404k · 2014–2017

• Mechanisms and Functions of FMRP in Neuronal Development

  NIH · $2.9M · 2003–2016

Frequent coauthors

• Michael A. Paradiso

  Brown University

  122 shared

• Barry W. Connors

  113 shared

• Emily K. Osterweil

  Boston Children's Hospital

  68 shared

• Arnold J. Heynen

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  63 shared

• Alfredo Kirkwood

  Johns Hopkins University

  44 shared

• Sam F. Cooke

  University of Lincoln

  43 shared

• Eric D. Gaier

  Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary

  43 shared

• Gül Dölen

  Discovery Institute

  38 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Neuroscience

  Harvard University

  1985

• B.A., Psychology

  University of California, San Diego

  1980

Similar researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Emery N Brownh-162
• Ann M.Graybielh-148
• Edward Stuart Boydenh-136