Florida’s Scripps Research Institute Scientist Awarded $3.5 Million for Memory Research

Ron Davis, Ph.D., of the Scripps Research Institute in Florida has been granted $3.5 million from the Jacob K. Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award to research complex memory disorders.

The four-year award comes from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), an arm of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

"I am honored to receive the Javits Award," said Davis, who is chairman of the Neuroscience Department at the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter. "The award is a continuation of the first grant I received from the NINDS some 30 years ago, so it's very much a personal milestone for me. I am extremely grateful to the NINDS for their support of my research program across these three decades."

Davis research will explore the role that active forgetting plays in learning and memory. The researcher and his team have discovered that dopamine signaling to specific neurons in the brain provides a signal to forget. The implication of the research could be a better understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and Alzheimers disease.

We really know very little about the molecular and cellular biology of active forgetting, Davis said.

The grant is in memory of late-Sen. Jacob K. Javits of New York, who suffered from Lou Gehrig's disease.