Baxter Lab

Glickenhaus Laboratory of Neuropsychology

Research

Research in the Baxter lab focuses on the neural mechanisms of memory and cognitive function, and the ways in which these mechanisms fail in aging, Alzheimer’s disease, and neuropsychiatric disorders. Our research interests are broad and span different levels of analysis and species from rodents to humans. Current work in the laboratory is focused on the development and characterization of nonhuman primate models of Alzheimer’s disease, the long-term effects of general anesthesia and surgery on cognitive function both in early development and later in life, and the development of novel neuromodulation approaches for improving function of circuits involved in memory and cognition.

Publications

2021

Upright NA, Baxter MG (2021) Prefrontal cortex and cognitive aging in macaque monkeys. American Journal of Primatology, 83(11):e23250.

Baxter MG, Fehr T (2021) Developmental exposure to general anaesthesia: missed connections? British Journal of Anaesthesia, 126, 756-758.

Tang CY, Wang VX, Lun MY, Mincer JS, Ng JC, Brallier JW, Schwartz AE, Ahn H, McCormick PJ, Nir T, Delman B, Sano M, Deiner SG, Baxter MG (2021) Transient changes in white matter microstructure during general anesthesia. PLoS One, 16(3), e0247678.

Upright NA, Baxter MG (2021) Effects of nicotinic antagonists on working memory performance in young rhesus monkeys. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 184, 107505.

Baxter MG, Mincer JS, Brallier JW, Schwartz A, Ahn H, Nir T, McCormick PJ, Ismail M, Sewell M, Allore HG, Ramsey CM, Sano M, Deiner SG (2021) Cognitive recovery by decade in healthy 40-80 year old volunteers after anesthesia without surgery. Anesthesia & Analgesia.

2020

Nir T, Jacob Y, Huang KH, Schwartz AE, Brallier JW, Ahn H, Kundu P, Tang CY, Delman BN, McCormick PJ, Sano M, Deiner S, Baxter MG, Mincer JS (2020) Resting-state functional connectivity in early postanaesthesia recovery is characterised by globally reduced anticorrelations. British Journal of Anaesthesia, 125, 529-538.

Deiner S, Baxter MG, Mincer JS, Sano M, Hall J, Mohammed I, O’Bryant S, Zetterberg H, Blennow K, Eckenhoff R (2020) Human plasma biomarker responses to inhalational general anaesthesia without surgery. British Journal of Anaesthesia, 125, 282-290.

Upright NA, Baxter MG (2020) Effect of chemogenetic actuator drugs on prefrontal cortex-dependent working memory in nonhuman primates. Neuropsychopharmacology, 45, 1793-1798.

Deiner S, Liu X, Lin H-M, Jacoby R, Kim J, Baxter MG, Sieber F, Boockvar K, Sano M (2020) Does postoperative cognitive decline result in new disability after surgery? Annals of Surgery, published online 6 March 2020.

2019

Beckman D, Ott S, Donis-Cox K, Janssen WGM, Bliss-Moreau E, Rudebeck PH, Baxter MG, Morrison JH (2019) Oligomeric Aβ in the monkey brain affects synaptic integrity and induces accelerated cortical aging. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 116:26239-26246.

Bliss-Moreau E, Baxter MG (2019) Interest in nonsocial novel stimuli as a function of age in rhesus monkeys. Royal Society Open Science, 6: 182237.

Deiner S, Liu X, Lin HM, Sieber F, Boockvar K, Sano M, Baxter MG (2019) Subjective cognitive complaints in patients undergoing major non-cardiac surgery: a prospective single centre cohort trial. British Journal of Anaesthesia, 22:742-750

Golden CEM, Breen MS, Koro L, Sonar S, Niblo K, Browne A, Burlant N, Di Marino D, De Rubeis S, Baxter MG, Buxbaum JD, Harony-Nicolas H (2019) Deletion of the KH1 domain of Fmr1 leads to transcriptional alterations and attentional deficits in rats. Cerebral Cortex, 29:2228-2244.

2018

Upright NA, Brookshire SW, Schnebelen W, Damatac CG, Hof PR, Browning PGF, Croxson PL, Rudebeck PH, Baxter MG (2018) Behavioral effect of chemogenetic inhibition is directly related to receptor transduction levels in rhesus monkeys. Journal of Neuroscience, 38:7969-7975.

Froudist-Walsh S, Browning PGF, Croxson PL, Murphy KL, Shamy JL, Veuthey TL, Wilson CRE, Baxter MG (2018) The rhesus monkey hippocampus critically contributes to scene memory retrieval, but not new learning. Journal of Neuroscience, 38:7800-7808.

Motley SE, Grossman Y, Janssen WGM, Baxter MG, Rapp PR, Dumitriu D, Morrison JH (2018) Selective loss of thin spines in area 7a of the primate intraparietal sulcus predicts age-related working memory impairment. Journal of Neuroscience, 38:10467-10478.

Young JJ, Rudebeck PH, Marcuse LV, Fields MC, Yoo JY, Panov F, Ghatan S, Fazl A, Mandelbaum S, Baxter MG (2018) Theta band network supporting human episodic memory is not activated in the seizure onset zone. NeuroImage 183:565-573.

Baxter MG, Santistevan AC, Bliss-Moreau E, Morrison JH (2018) Timing of cyclic estradiol treatment differentially affects cognition in aged female rhesus monkeys. Behavioral Neuroscience, 132:213-223.

Bliss-Moreau E, Baxter MG (2018) Estradiol treatment in a nonhuman primate model of menopause preserves affective reactivity. Behavioral Neuroscience, 132:224-229.

Baxter MG, Crimins JL (2018) Acetylcholine receptor stimulation for cognitive enhancement: Better the devil you know? Neuron, 98:1064-1066.

Miller ML, Chadwick B, Dickstein DL, Purushothaman I, Egervari G, Rahman T, Tessereau C, Hof PR, Roussos P, Shen L, Baxter MG, Hurd YL (2018) Adolescent exposure to Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol alters the transcriptional trajectory and dendritic architecture of prefrontal pyramidal neurons. Molecular Psychiatry.

Raper J, De Biasio JC, Murphy KL, Alvarado MC, Baxter MG (2018) Persistent alteration in behavioural reactivity to a mild social stressor in rhesus monkeys repeatedly exposed to sevoflurane in infancy. British Journal of Anaesthesia 120:761-767.

2017 and earlier

Alvarado MC, Murphy KL, Baxter MG (2017) Visual recognition memory is impaired in rhesus monkeys repeatedly exposed to sevoflurane in infancy. British Journal of Anaesthesia, 119, 517-523.

Raper J, Alvarado MC, Murphy KL, Baxter MG (2015) Multiple anesthetic exposure in infant monkeys alters emotional reactivity to an acute stressor. Anesthesiology, 123, 1084-1092.

Amrock LG, Starner ML, Murphy KL, Baxter MG (2015) Long-term effects of single or multiple neonatal sevoflurane exposures on rat hippocampal ultrastructure. Anesthesiology, 122, 87-95.

O’Reilly JX, Croxson PL, Jbabdi S, Sallet J, Noonan MP, Mars RB, Browning PG, Wilson CR, Mitchell AS, Miller KL, Rushworth MFS, Baxter MG (2013) Causal effect of disconnection lesions on interhemispheric functional connectivity in rhesus monkeys. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 110, 13982-13987.

Morrison JH, Baxter MG (2012) The ageing cortical synapse: Hallmarks and implications for cognitive decline. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 13, 240-250.

Croxson PL, Browning PGF, Gaffan D, Baxter MG (2012) Acetylcholine facilitates recovery of episodic memory after brain damage. Journal of Neuroscience, 32, 13787-13795.

Croxson PL, Kyriazis DA, Baxter MG (2011) Cholinergic modulation of a specific memory function of prefrontal cortex. Nature Neuroscience, 14, 1510-1512.

Featured Publication

Upright NA, Baxter MG (2020) Effect of chemogenetic actuator drugs on prefrontal cortex-dependent working memory in nonhuman primates. Neuropsychopharmacology, 45, 1793-1798.

Meet the Team

Mark Baxter, PhD

Principal Investigator

My work uses animal models to establish causal links between manipulations of defined neural circuits and behavioral and cognitive functions, with a view towards ameliorating age-related impairments in memory and cognition. I also study the long-term effects of exposure to general anesthesia on cognitive function, at different stages of the lifespan. My academic mentors were David Olton and Linda Gorman at Johns Hopkins University, Michela Gallagher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Elisabeth Murray at the NIMH. I joined Mount Sinai as a tenured faculty member in 2010.

Camille Casiño

Associate Researcher

I joined the Baxter Lab as an associate researcher in 2021. I received my undergraduate degree in Neuroscience at the University of Chicago, where I studied neuronal mitochondria and synapse morphology. My interests lie in memory, neuron ultrastructure, and neuropharmacology on the cellular and molecular level.

Tristan Fehr, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

Following undergraduate degrees in Biology and Psychology at Arizona State University, I accepted a Fulbright Fellowship to Madrid, Spain where I continued building my foundations in neuroscience research before beginning my doctoral training in Neuroscience at Mount Sinai. My prior research spans epigenetics, neuropsychiatric illness including depression, and the gut-brain axis. Currently, I focus my efforts on understanding the neural effects of multiple anesthesia exposures on the developing brain, using electron microscopy as a primary tool.

Nick Upright

Graduate Student

I received my undergraduate degree in Neuroscience from Davidson College. As a student, I researched synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus utilizing in vivo electrophysiology in rats. Following graduation, I worked as a research technician for two years investigating hippocampal plasticity following injection of 192 IgG-saporin. I joined the Baxter Lab as part of the Neuroscience PhD program at Mount Sinai in 2016.