Biography
The Portera-Cailliau laboratory investigates how developmental defects in network connectivity at the level of the cerebral cortex directly lead to symptoms of autism, learning disability and intellectual dysfunction. In particular they are studying sensory hypersensitivity in a model of fragile X syndrome, by combining in vivo two-photon calcium imaging, patch-clamp electrophysiology, and head-fixed behavior. Dr. Portera-Cailliau was born and raised in Madrid, Spain. He obtained a B.A. in Biochemistry & Cell Biology from U.C. San Diego in 1990. He then attended the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and obtained an MD-PhD degree in 1997. His mentors were Drs. Donald Price and Lee Martin. After finishing a residency in Neurology at The Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston in 2001, Dr. Portera-Cailliau moved to Columbia University for a post-doctoral fellowship in Dr. Rafael Yuste’s laboratory. His second post-doc was with Dr. Karel Svoboda in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He joined the UCLA faculty in November 2004 and has joint appointments in the Departments of Neurology and Neurobiology. He is a member of UCLA’s Brain Research Institute, the Integrated Center for Learning & Memory, and the Neuroscience Theme. Since 2013 he has served as co-director of the UCLA-Caltech Medical Scientist Training Program.
Publications
A selected list of publications:
Wassum KM, Greenfield, VY, Linker KE, Maidment NT, Ostlund SB. Inflated Reward Value in Early Opiate Withdrawal Addiction Biology, 2014; .
Tolosa VM, Wassum KM, Maidment NT, Monbouquette HG. Electrochemically-deposited iridium oxide reference electrode integrated with an electroenzymatic glutamate sensor on a multi-electrode array microprobe, Biosensors and Bioelectronics, 2013; .
Wassum KM, Ostlund SB, Loewinger GC, Maidment NT. Phasic mesolimbic dopamine release tracks reward seeking during expression of Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer, Biological Psychiatry, 2013; .
Wassum KM, Ostlund SB, Maidment NT. Phasic mesolimbic dopamine signaling precedes and predicts performance of a self-initiated action sequence, Biological Psychiatry, 2012; .
Wassum KM, Tolosa VM, Tseng TC, Balleine BW, Monbouquette HG, Maidment NT. Transient extracellular glutamate events in the basolateral amygdala track reward seeking actions, Journal of Neuroscience, 2012; .
Lichtenberg Nina T, Pennington Zachary T, Holley Sandra M, Greenfield Venuz Y, Cepeda Carlos, Levine Michael S, Wassum Kate M Basolateral Amygdala to Orbitofrontal Cortex Projections Enable Cue-Triggered Reward Expectations The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2017; 37(35): 8374-8384.
Hersman Sarah, Cushman Jesse, Lemelson Noah, Wassum Kate, Lotfipour Shahrdad, Fanselow Michael S Optogenetic excitation of cholinergic inputs to hippocampus primes future contextual fear associations Scientific reports, 2017; 7(1): 2333.
Lichtenberg Nina T, Wassum Kate M Amygdala mu-opioid receptors mediate the motivating influence of cue-triggered reward expectations The European journal of neuroscience, 2017; 45(3): 381-387.
Ostlund Sean B, Liu Angela T, Wassum Kate M, Maidment Nigel T Modulation of cue-triggered reward seeking by cholinergic signaling in the dorsomedial striatum The European journal of neuroscience, 2017; 45(3): 358-364.
Collins Anne L, Aitken Tara J, Greenfield Venuz Y, Ostlund Sean B, Wassum Kate M Nucleus Accumbens Acetylcholine Receptors Modulate Dopamine and Motivation Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2016; 41(12): 2830-2838.
Wassum Kate M, Greenfield Venuz Y, Linker Kay E, Maidment Nigel T, Ostlund Sean B Inflated reward value in early opiate withdrawal Addiction biology, 2016; 21(2): 221-33.
Aitken Tara J, Greenfield Venuz Y, Wassum Kate M Nucleus accumbens core dopamine signaling tracks the need-based motivational value of food-paired cues Journal of neurochemistry, 2016; 136(5): 1026-36.
Malvaez Melissa, Greenfield Venuz Y, Wang Alice S, Yorita Allison M, Feng Lili, Linker Kay E, Monbouquette Harold G, Wassum Kate M Corrigendum: Basolateral amygdala rapid glutamate release encodes an outcome-specific representation vital for reward-predictive cues to selectively invigorate reward-seeking actions Scientific reports, 2016; 6(5): 20891.
Collins Anne L, Greenfield Venuz Y, Bye Jeffrey K, Linker Kay E, Wang Alice S, Wassum Kate M Dynamic mesolimbic dopamine signaling during action sequence learning and expectation violation Scientific reports, 2016; 6(5): 20231.
Fanselow Michael S, Wassum Kate M The Origins and Organization of Vertebrate Pavlovian Conditioning Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology, 2015; 8(1): a021717.
Malvaez Melissa, Greenfield Venuz Y, Wang Alice S, Yorita Allison M, Feng Lili, Linker Kay E, Monbouquette Harold G, Wassum Kate M Basolateral amygdala rapid glutamate release encodes an outcome-specific representation vital for reward-predictive cues to selectively invigorate reward-seeking actions Scientific reports, 2015; 5: 12511.
Wassum Kate M, Izquierdo Alicia The basolateral amygdala in reward learning and addiction Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews, 2015; .
Wassum Kate M, Phillips Paul E M Probing the neurochemical correlates of motivation and decision making ACS chemical neuroscience, 2015; 6(1): 11-3.
Ostlund Sean B, LeBlanc Kimberly H, Kosheleff Alisa R, Wassum Kate M, Maidment Nigel T Phasic mesolimbic dopamine signaling encodes the facilitation of incentive motivation produced by repeated cocaine exposure Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2014; 39(10): 2441-9.
Tolosa Vanessa M, Wassum Kate M, Maidment Nigel T, Monbouquette Harold G Electrochemically deposited iridium oxide reference electrode integrated with an electroenzymatic glutamate sensor on a multi-electrode array microprobe Biosensors & bioelectronics, 2013; 42(8): 256-60.
Wassum Kate M, Ostlund Sean B, Loewinger Gabriel C, Maidment Nigel T Phasic mesolimbic dopamine release tracks reward seeking during expression of Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer Biological psychiatry, 2013; 73(8): 747-55.
Wassum Kate M, Ostlund Sean B, Maidment Nigel T Phasic mesolimbic dopamine signaling precedes and predicts performance of a self-initiated action sequence task Biological psychiatry, 2012; 71(10): 846-54.
Wassum Kate M, Tolosa Vanessa M, Tseng Tina C, Balleine Bernard W, Monbouquette Harold G, Maidment Nigel T Transient extracellular glutamate events in the basolateral amygdala track reward-seeking actions The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2012; 32(8): 2734-46.
Wassum Kate M, Ostlund Sean B, Balleine Bernard W, Maidment Nigel T Differential dependence of Pavlovian incentive motivation and instrumental incentive learning processes on dopamine signaling Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.), 2011; 18(7): 475-83.
Wassum Kate M, Cely Ingrid C, Balleine Bernard W, Maidment Nigel T Micro-opioid receptor activation in the basolateral amygdala mediates the learning of increases but not decreases in the incentive value of a food reward The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2011; 31(5): 1591-9.
Ostlund Sean B, Wassum Kate M, Murphy Niall P, Balleine Bernard W, Maidment Nigel T Extracellular dopamine levels in striatal subregions track shifts in motivation and response cost during instrumental conditioning The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2011; 31(1): 200-7.
Wassum KM, Cely IC, Ostlund SB, Maidment NT, Balleine BW. Disruption of endogenous opioid activity during instrumental learning enhances habit acquisition, Neuroscience, 2009; 163(3): 770-80.
Wassum KM, Ostlund SB, Maidment NT, Balleine BW. Distinct opioid circuits determine the palatability and the desirability of rewarding events, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 2009; 106(30): 12512-7.
Wassum Kate M, Evans Christopher J International Narcotics Research Conference – 39th Annual Meeting IDrugs : the investigational drugs journal, 2008; 11(9): 646-9.
Wassum Kate M, Tolosa Vanessa M, Wang Jianjun, Walker Eric, Monbouquette Harold G, Maidment Nigel T Silicon Wafer-Based Platinum Microelectrode Array Biosensor for Near Real-Time Measurement of Glutamate in Vivo Sensors (Basel, Switzerland), 2008; 8(8): 5023-5036.
Wightman R Mark, Heien Michael L A V, Wassum Kate M, Sombers Leslie A, Aragona Brandon J, Khan Amina S, Ariansen Jennifer L, Cheer Joseph F, Phillips Paul E M, Carelli Regina M Dopamine release is heterogeneous within microenvironments of the rat nucleus accumbens The European journal of neuroscience, 2007; 26(7): 2046-54.
Cheer Joseph F, Wassum Kate M, Sombers Leslie A, Heien Michael L A V, Ariansen Jennifer L, Aragona Brandon J, Phillips Paul E M, Wightman R Mark Phasic dopamine release evoked by abused substances requires cannabinoid receptor activation The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2007; 27(4): 791-5.
Cheer Joseph F, Wassum Kate M, Wightman R Mark Cannabinoid modulation of electrically evoked pH and oxygen transients in the nucleus accumbens of awake rats Journal of neurochemistry, 2006; 97(4): 1145-54.
Heien Michael L A V, Khan Amina S, Ariansen Jennifer L, Cheer Joseph F, Phillips Paul E M, Wassum Kate M, Wightman R Mark Real-time measurement of dopamine fluctuations after cocaine in the brain of behaving rats Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2005; 102(29): 10023-8.
Cheer Joseph F, Wassum Kate M, Heien Michael L A V, Phillips Paul E M, Wightman R Mark Cannabinoids enhance subsecond dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens of awake rats The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2004; 24(18): 4393-400.