Neurosalience #S4E9 with Marsel Mesulam - 50+ years of brain research and importance of bubbles

OHBM Neurosalience

It is our great pleasure and deep honor to host Dr. Marsel Mesulam who is a giant in the field of Neurology and one of founders of OHBM. Dr. Mesulam is Chief of Behavioral Neurology and the Ruth Dunbar Davee Professor of Neuroscience at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and Professor of Behavioral Neurology at the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Mesulam received his MD from Harvard Medical School in 1972, and in 1976 completed residencies at Boston City Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. After a 1 year postdoc at Harvard University he began his tenure in Chicago at Northwestern. Dr. Mesulam's work has been both prodigious and impactful over the years, as his almost 1000 papers have been cited over 140 thousand times. He has written the seminal book, Principles of Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology, and has produced many landmark papers - a few of which we'll discuss in the podcast. One paper that we consider a masterpiece was published in Brain in 1998 and titled From Sensation to Cognition. This can be considered as a required reading for everyone in the field of brain mapping as it lays out so concisely and eloquently, a breathtaking perspective of the structure and functional organization of the human brain.
Dr. Mesulam's research is extremely broad and diverse, having impacted such areas as neural networks and functional imaging, Dementia, Alzheimer's Disease, Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA), Cholinergic Pathways, Acetylcholinesterase Studies, Cognitive Psychology, Neurology, and Neuropsychiatry. He also developed, early in his career, a neuronal marker, Tetramethyl benzidine, that profoundly impacted research in this area.
In this inspiring conversation, Peter and Marsel discuss his early career and what was important for his success, delve into research culture and the value of opportunistic research, and the value of having the freedom and resources to try many things and rapidly change directions that follow interesting leads. They also discuss some of the exciting early days of Neuroimaging and OHBM. Lastly, we go into some of his current research on Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) and the study of temporal pole disease as a window to temporal pole functional significance.
We hope that you enjoy this conversation.

Episode producers:
Alfie Wearn
Omer Faruk Gulban