Lynn
Raymond
Director, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health
Professor, Dept of Psychiatry
Research Theme:
Cellular & Molecular Engineering,
Research Interests:
Synaptic function in Huntington disease, NMDA-type glutamate receptor and calcium homeostasis in synaptic function, mouse models & automated assessment
Biography:
Dr. Lynn Raymond combines neuroscience research with clinical practice in Neurology. Her lab investigates pathogenic mechanisms of Huntington disease (HD), as well as glutamate receptor structure-function, modulation and signaling. Working with HD mouse models, Dr. Raymond made significant contributions to focusing the field on altered striatal neuronal NMDA-type glutamate receptor (NMDAR) trafficking and excitatory synaptic signaling as central mechanisms of early striatal dysfunction.
More recently, her lab has focused on early changes in cortical-striatal and cortical pyramidal glutamatergic synaptic plasticity, which may contribute to impairments in learning and cognitive flexibility, as well as promote selective neuronal degeneration. The lab also developed an automated home-cage system for assessing motor learning, and uses electrophysiological and optogenetic approaches to study cortical and striatal activity in awake behaving mice in vivo to determine circuit changes underlying HD. Dr. Raymond served as President for the Canadian Association for Neuroscience. She is Director of the HD Medical Clinic at UBC and a practicing neurologist. As Site PI of several clinical trials and observational studies, she contributes data to publications on multi-centre studies in HD.