Javier Medina | University of Pennsylvania Department of Psychology

Assistant Professor

Department:

Psychology

Education:

BS, Physics, Drexel Universitiy; Ph.D., Neuroscience, University of Texas-Houston

Address:

Solomon Labs, 3720 Walnut St, Room D6

Phone:

215-898-2164

Email:

jmed@psych.upenn.edu

CV

Research Themes:

Animal Learning and Behavior

Behavioral Neuroscience

Cognitive Neuroscience

Memory and Learning

Specific Research Areas:

Neural basis of motor learning

Research Synopsis:

What are the neural processes that allow us to acquire and consolidate new motor skills such as learning to play the piano, ride a bicycle or swing a golf club? To address this question, my laboratory is doing experiments in awake-behaving mice while they perform a simple motor learning task known as Pavlovian eyeblink conditioning. We study neural processing in normal mice and in genetically-engineered mouse models of motor dysfunction using a multi-disciplinary approach that combines tools from psychology, in vivo neurophysiology and computational neuroscience. The goal of our research is to understand the link between neural activity, long-term plasticity and motor learning in the healthy brain, and then, to translate our findings into the clinical realm by identifying therapeutic entry-points for the treatment of movement disorders.

Representative Courses:

PSYC 109 Introduction to Brain and Behavior

Appointments:

Psychology Graduate Group; Neuroscience Graduate Group

Advisees:

Farzaneh Najafi [Biology Graduate Student]

Representative Publications:

Medina JF, Lisberger, SG (2009) Encoding and decoding of learned smooth-pursuit eye movements in the floccular complex of the monkey cerebellum. Journal of Neurophysiology 102(4):2039-54.

Medina, JF, Lisberger SG (2008) Links from complex spikes to local plasticity and motor learning in the cerebellum of awake-behaving monkeys. Nature Neuroscience 11(10):1185-92.

Medina, JF, Lisberger SG (2007) Variation, signal, and noise in cerebellar sensory-motor processing for smooth-pursuit eye movements. Journal of Neuroscience 27(25):6832-42.

Carey, MR, Medina JF, Lisberger SG (2005) Instructive signals for motor learning from visual cortical area MT. Nature Neuroscience 8(6):813-819.

Medina JF, Carey MR, Lisberger SG (2005) The representation of time for motor learning. Neuron 45(1):157-167

Medina JF, Nores WL, Mauk MD (2002) Inhibition of climbing fibres is a signal for the extinction of conditioned eyelid responses. Nature 416:330-333

Medina JF, Repa JC, Mauk MD, LeDoux JE (2002) Parallels between cerebellum- and amygdala-dependent conditioning. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 3(2):122-131

Medina JF, Garcia KS, Mauk MD (2001) A mechanism for savings in the cerebellum. Journal of Neuroscience 21(11):4081-4089.

Medina JF, Mauk MD (2000) Computer simulation of cerebellar information processing. Nature Neuroscience 3:1205-1211.

Medina JF, Garcia KS, Nores WL, Taylor NM, Mauk MD (2000) Timing mechanisms in the cerebellum: Testing predictions of a large-scale computer simulation. Journal of Neuroscience 20(14):5516-5525.