David Sulzer born November 6, is an American neuroscientist and musician. Sulzer's laboratory investigates the interaction between the synapses of the cerebral cortex and the basal ganglia , including the dopamine system, in habit formation, planning, decision making, and diseases of the system.
His lab has developed the first means to optically measure neurotransmission, and has introduced new hypotheses of neurodegeneration in Parkinson's disease, and changes in synapses that produce autism [ 2 ] and habit learning. Under the stage name Dave Soldier , he is known as a composer and musician in a variety of genres including avant-garde , classical , and jazz : [ 4 ] the intersection between these careers was detailed in a New Yorker profile.
Sulzer works on basal ganglia and dopamine neurons, brain cells of central importance in translating will to action. His team have introduced new methods to study synapses, including the first means to measure the fundamental "quantal" unit of neurotransmitter release from central synapses. They reported the first direct recordings of quantal neurotransmitter release from brain synapses [ 6 ] using an electrochemistry technique known as amperometry , based on the method of Mark Wightman , a chemist at the University of North Carolina , to measure release of adrenaline from adrenal chromaffin cells.
They showed that the quantal event at dopamine synapses consisted of the release of about 3, dopamine molecules in about nanoseconds. Sulzer's lab, together with that of Dalibor Sames, a chemist at Columbia University , introduced "fluorescent false neurotransmitters", compounds that accumulated like genuine neurotransmitters into neurons and synaptic vesicles.
This is used to observe neurotransmitter release and reuptake from individual synapses [ 10 ] in video. Sulzer, along with his mentor Stephen Rayport, showed that the neurotransmitter glutamate is released from dopamine neurons, [ 11 ] [ 12 ] an important exception to the Dale's principle that a neuron releases the same transmitter from each of its synapses.
