Memories of John Lisman

Abstract

Using all-custom-made equipment, his laboratory was able to record and characterize unitary light-dependent channels before any other sensory channels, providing a new direction for investigating the final steps of Limulus phototransduction. In 1985 he published a model in which a group of kinases located at the synapse can phosphorylate each other, forming a bistable switch, a local molecular mechanism of memory storage. Concurrent work from Mary Kennedy's group showed that calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) had properties that were similarly switch-like. [...]the CaMKII model of memory was born, driving both experimental and theoretical studies by many investigators. John got interested in a role of dopamine in memory, postulating a linkage between D1 receptor-dependent inhibition of protein phosphatase 1 and CaMKII phosphorylation.