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CF Neuroscience programme

Rui Costa

Rui M. Costa, D.V.M., Ph.D., Adjunct Investigator

Dr. Costa received his D.V.M. from the Technical University of Lisbon in 1996. He entered the GABBA graduate program from University of Porto in 1997, and performed his Ph.D. studies with Dr. Alcino Silva at UCLA from 1998 to 2002 in the field of learning and memory, investigating the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the learning disabilities associated with NF1. He then joined Dr. Miguel Nicolelis at Duke University for his postdoctoral training, where he established multi-site neuronal recordings in awake behaving mice. Dr. Costa received the Young Investigator Award from the National Neurofibromatosis Foundation in 2001, and was a finalist of the Lindsley Prize from the Society for Neuroscience in 2003. Dr. Costa joined NIH in January 2006, and became an adjunct investigator of the Champalimaud Neuroscience Program at IGC in 2007. His laboratory studies the neurobiology of action in health and disease.

Selected Publications:

• Costa, R.M., Lin, S.C., Sotnikova, T.D., Cyr, M., Gainetdinov, R.R., Caron, M.G., Nicolelis M.A.L. (2006). Rapid alterations in corticostriatal ensemble coordination during acute dopamine-dependent motor dysfunction.Neuron. 19; 52(2):359-69.
• Costa, R.M., Drew, C. and Silva, A.J. (2005) To Remember or Notch to Remember., Trends in Neurosciences, 28, 429-35.
• Costa, R.M., Cohen, D., Nicolelis M.A.L. (2004) Differential corticostriatal plasticity during fast and slow motor skill learning in mice. Current Biology 14(13), 1124-34.
• Costa R.M., Honjo T., and Silva A.J. (2003) Learning and memory deficits in Notch mutant mice. , Current Biology 13 (15), 1348-54.
• Costa, R.M. and Silva, A.J. (2003) Mouse models of Neurofibromatosis type I: Bridging the GAP. , Trends in Molecular Medicine, 9, 19-23.
• Costa, R.M., Federov, N.B., Kogan, J.H., Murphy, G.G., Stern, J., Ohno, M., Kucherlapati, R., Jacks, T. and Silva, A.J. (2002) Mechanism for the learning deficits in a mouse model of neurofibromatosis type 1, Nature, 415 (6871) 415 (6871), 526-30.
• Costa, R.M., Yang, T., Huynh, D.P., Pulst S.M., Viskochil, D.H., Silva, A.J. and Brannan, C.I. (2001) Learning deficits, but normal development and tumor predisposition, in mice lacking exon 23a of the Neurofibromatosis type I gene., Nature Genetics, 27, 399-405.