David T. Blake, PhD - Lab

Professor
Department of Neuroscience & Regenerative Medicine

Mailing Address:

Department of Neuroscience & Regenerative Medicine
1120 15th Street, Rm. CA4002
Medical College of Georgia Augusta University
Augusta, GA 30912

Phone:  706-721-9399
E-mail:  dblake@augusta.edu 

Education:

1990 Duke University, BSE, Biomedical Engineering
1995 Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, PhD

Training:

1996-2000   UCSF, Keck Center, Postdoctoral Scholar
2001-2004   UCSF, Keck Center, Asst Research Scientist
2004-5         UCSF, Keck Center, Adjunct  Assistant Professor

Research interests:

My work has focused on interactions between electrophysiology and behavior. Earlier work predominantly investigated sensory systems particularly the senses of touch and hearing, at the cortical level.  Later work has branched out to investigate mechanisms of executive function including working memory and sustained attention. Current work is focused on the use of deep brain stimulation of the cholinergic forebrain to alter cognition in mice, monkeys, and humans.

Current projects:

1)    Deep brain stimulation of the cholinergic forebrain in aged animals.
2)    Impacts of cholinergic deep brain stimulation on acetylcholine levels, brain blood flow, and amyloid pathways.
3)    Deep brain stimulation human clinical trials.

Lab members:

Our work is highly collaborative.
Jacob Kumro  -  MD/PhD Student
Kendyl Pennington  -  Technician

Collaborations at AU:

Alvin Terry, PhD
Marc Plagenhoef, Res. Asst.
Sergei Kirov, PhD
Jeremy Sword, PhD
Anil Pillai, PhD

Collaboration at Wake Forest:

Christos Constantinidis, PhD
Xuelian Qi, PhD

Selected publications:

1. Liu, R., Crawford, J., Callahan, P. M., Terry Jr, A. V., Constantinidis, C., & Blake, D. T. (2017). Intermittent stimulation of the nucleus basalis of meynert improves working memory in adult monkeys. Current Biology, 27(17), 2640-2646.
2. Liu, R., Crawford, J., Callahan, P. M., Terry, A. V., Constantinidis, C., & Blake, D. T. (2018). Intermittent stimulation in the nucleus basalis of Meynert improves sustained attention in rhesus monkeys. Neuropharmacology, 137, 202-210.
3. Blake, D. T., Terry, A. V., Kumro, J., & Constantinidis, C. (2019). Behavioral Investigations of Deep Brain Stimulation of the Basal Forebrain and its Application to Alzheimer's Disease Treatment Japanese journal of cognitive neuroscience, 21(1), 53-59.
4. Blake, D. T. (2011). Network supervision of adult experience and learning dependent sensory cortical plasticity. Comprehensive Physiology, 7(3), 977-1008.