Michele A. Basso, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Departments of Physiology and Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences
Director and Primary Investigator
(608) 262-7110
I received my Ph.D. in Behavioral Neuroscience working on the physiological underpinnings of a symptom exhibited by Parkinsonian patients: the glabellar tap sign. This symptom is very subtle and often appears before overt Parkinsonian symptoms, such as tremor, are evident. The glabellar tap sign is measured when a physician gently taps the forehead of patients and examines a blink reflex in response. In healthy humans and other animals, the blink reflex rapidly habituates in response to this gentle tap. In Parkinsonism, the reflex fails to habituate. My research demonstrated that this reflex abnormality seen in Parkinsonism resulted from faulty cooperation between voluntary and reflex motor systems - a job that is normally performed, in large part, by a set of subcortical forebrain nuclei called the basal ganglia.
My findings as a Ph.D. student led me to begin focusing my research on voluntary movement control and the symptoms of Parkinson's disease and other diseases of volitional movement involving the basal ganglia, such as Huntington's disease and dystonia.
After a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Eye Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, I moved to Madison in 2000. Today, my laboratory focuses on understanding the role of the basal ganglia and the superior colliculus in the generation of voluntary movements of the eyes and the role that higher perceptual and cognitive processes play in the transformation of sensory information to produce voluntary movements. Our emphasis is on understanding normal brain mechanisms that control complex behaviors and how these mechanisms go awry in movement-disordered states.
To this end, we perform basic science experiments and we participate in clinical research with clinicians treating patients with movement disorders. We hold a strong belief that basic and clinical research benefit from each other and that the development of animal models in the laboratory that can be tested clinically will lead to better diagnostics and treatments of devastating human diseases.
Back
to People