The Mind's Map Maker

by Eva Emerson

By his own calculation, USC College neuroscientist Larry Swanson has spent the last 29 years working to create a detailed map of the brain, one that reveals the complex wiring that underlies some of the most fundamental animal behaviors.

Thanks to a new merit-based award, Swanson will be able to continue his long pursuit of the ultimate brain atlas into the near future.
Swanson has received the Senator Jacob Javits Award in the Neurosciences for the second time in his career. The prestigious award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) provides up to seven years of research funding.

“The Javits Award recognizes extraordinary research that has the potential to better thousands of lives,” said Story Landis, NINDS director, in the announcement of the six 2006 winners.

Investigators cannot apply for the Javits Award — NINDS staff and members of an advisory council select nominees from the pool of grant applicants, based on past productivity and innovation.

In selecting him, NINDS called Swanson one of the nation’s leading neuroanatomists, whose earlier work has challenged old concepts of brain organization.
The award will allow Swanson and his team to not only continue their research into the neural networks that mediate motivated behaviors — the “basic drives” that control behavior in relation to hunger and thirst, defense, and reproduction and parenting in animals — but also to explore new directions.
“It’s a very long-term project to figure out the wiring diagram of the brain,” said Swanson, the Milo Don and Lucille Appleman Professor of Biological Sciences.

“We’re basically down to the hardest part now — the lateral hypothalamus, which is the densest and most interconnected part of the brain. It’s an anatomical area, but its effects are somewhat diffuse. People understand everything that’s around it, but little about the lateral hypothalamus itself.”

The lateral hypothalamus makes up less than 1 percent of the brain by weight. But, Swanson said, “we believe this area deals with some of the most complex and important functions of the brain — the emotions, attention, appetite, other drives. It’s just so small physically and so big functionally, it’s been very hard to figure out.”

After five years of study, his team has identified almost 30 distinct sub-parts, and has discovered functions of at least two of these. One appears important in flight or fight behaviors and another in eating and drinking.

“In the last few years, everything has finally started to open up” in this area of the brain, he said.

The Javits Award is especially gratifying, Swanson noted, because winners are selected by “the hardest critics in the world — anonymous reviewers.”