Laboratory of Behavioral Neuroscience

Research in the Baxter lab focuses on the neural mechanisms of learning, memory, executive function, and decision-making, and the ways in which these mechanisms fail in aging and neuropsychiatric disorders.

I am a Reader in Behavioural Neuroscience and Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University, where I direct a research program studying the neurochemical regulation of prefrontal cortex function. I came to Oxford in January of 2004. The lab is moving to the Department of Neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York at the beginning of 2010.

My research interests are broad and include the functional neuroanatomy of frontal and temporal cortex, regulation of higher cognitive functions by neuromodulators, the biological basis of cognitive impairments in neurodegenerative disease and neuropsychiatric conditions, as well as the neurobiological and cognitive effects of general anesthesia.

My life before coming to Oxford: I am a 1990 graduate of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. I received undergraduate and master's degrees in psychology at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, in 1993. My master's work, with David Olton and Linda Gorman, was concerned with drugs that were being evaluated as pharmacological treatments for Alzheimer's disease. I then went to graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I received my Ph.D. in Neurobiology in 1997. My dissertation work, conducted with Michela Gallagher, was on the role of the basal forebrain cholinergic system in cognitive function. I was a postdoctoral fellow for a year and a half at the National Institute of Mental Health, working with Betsy Murray in the Laboratory of Neuropsychology, on the neural substrates of learning and memory. From September 1998 to January 2004, I was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard.

Recent publications:

Baxter, M. G., Parker, A., Lindner, C. C. C., Izquierdo, A. D., and Murray, E. A. (2000). Control of response selection by reinforcer value requires interaction of amygdala and orbital prefrontal cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 20, 4311-4319.

Baxter, M. G. and Murray, E. A. (2001). Opposite relationship of hippocampal and rhinal cortex damage to delayed nonmatching-to-sample deficits in monkeys. Hippocampus, 11, 61-71.

Barense, M. D., Fox, M. T., and Baxter, M. G. (2002). Aged rats are impaired on an attentional set-shifting task sensitive to medial frontal cortex damage in young rats. Learning & Memory, 9, 191-201.

Baxter, M. G. and Murg, S. L. (2002). The basal forebrain cholinergic system and memory: Beware of dogma. In: L. R. Squire and D. L. Schacter (Eds.), Neuropsychology of Memory (3rd edition), pp. 425-436. New York: Guilford Press.

Baxter, M. G. and Murray, E. A. (2002). The amygdala and reward. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 3, 563-573.

Fox, M. T., Barense, M. D., and Baxter, M. G. (2003). Perceptual attentional set-shifting is impaired in rats with neurotoxic lesions of posterior parietal cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 23, 676-681.

Culley, D. J., Baxter, M., Yukhananov, R., and Crosby, G. (2003). Memory effects of general anesthesia persist for weeks in young and aged rats. Anesthesia & Analgesia, 96, 1004-1009.

Baxter, M. G. (2003). Age-related memory impairment: Is the cure worse than the disease? Neuron, 40, 669-670.

Janisiewicz, A. M. and Baxter, M. G. (2003). Transfer effects and conditional learning in rats with selective lesions of medial septal/diagonal band cholinergic neurons. Behavioral Neuroscience, 117, 1342-1352.

Culley, D. J., Baxter, M. G., Yukhananov, R., and Crosby, G. (2004). Long-term impairment of acquisition of a spatial memory task following isoflurane-nitrous oxide anesthesia in rats. Anesthesiology, 100, 309-314.

Parent, M. B. and Baxter, M. G. (2004). Septohippocampal acetylcholine: Involved in but not necessary for learning and memory? Learning & Memory, 11, 9-20.

Vuckovich, J. A., Semel, M. E., and Baxter, M. G. (2004). Extensive lesions of cholinergic basal forebrain neurons do not impair spatial working memory. Learning & Memory, 11, 87-94.

Janisiewicz, A. M., Jackson, O., III, Firoz, E. F., and Baxter, M. G. (2004). Environment-spatial conditional learning in rats with selective lesions of medial septal cholinergic neurons. Hippocampus, 14, 265-273.

Chen, K. C., Baxter, M. G., and Rodefer, J. S. (2004). Central blockade of muscarinic cholinergic receptors disrupts affective and attentional set shifting. European Journal of Neuroscience, 20, 1081-1088.

Culley, D. J., Baxter, M. G., Crosby, C. A., Yukhananov, R., and Crosby, G. (2004). Impaired acquisition of spatial memory two weeks after isoflurane and isoflurane-nitrous oxide anesthesia in aged rats. Anesthesia & Analgesia, 99, 1393-1397.

Rodefer, J. S., Murphy, E. R., and Baxter, M. G. (2005). PDE10A inhibition reverses subchronic PCP-induced deficits in attentional set-shifting in rats. European Journal of Neuroscience, 21, 1070-1076.

Sharma, N., Baxter, M. G., Petravicz, J., Bragg, D. C., Schienda, A., Standaert, D. G., and Breakefield, X. O. (2005). Impaired motor learning in mice expressing torsinA with the DYT1 dystonia mutation. Journal of Neuroscience, 25, 5351-5355.

Black, Y. D., Maclaren, F. R., Naydenov, A. V., Carlezon, W. A., Jr., Baxter, M. G., and Konradi, C. (2006). Altered attention and prefrontal cortex gene expression in rats after binge-like exposure to cocaine during adolescence. Journal of Neuroscience, 26, 9656-9665.

Fletcher, B. R., Baxter, M. G., Guzowski, J. F., Shapiro, M. L., and Rapp, P. R. (2007). Selective cholinergic depletion of the hippocampus spares both behaviorally induced Arc transcription and spatial learning and memory. Hippocampus, 17, 227-234.

Baxter, M. G. and Browning, P. G. F. (2007). Two wrongs make a right: Deficits in reversal learning after orbitofrontal damage are improved by amygdala ablation. Neuron, 54, 1-3.

Wilson, C. R. E., Gaffan, D., Mitchell, A. S., and Baxter, M. G. (2007). Neurotoxic lesions of ventrolateral prefrontal cortex impair object-in-place scene memory. European Journal of Neuroscience, 25, 2514-2522.

Mitchell, A. S., Browning, P. G. F., and Baxter, M. G. (2007). Neurotoxic lesions of the medial mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamus disrupt reinforcer devaluation effects in rhesus monkeys. Journal of Neuroscience, 27, 11289-11295.

Baxter, M. G., Gaffan, D., Kyriazis, D. A., and Mitchell, A. S. (2007). Orbital prefrontal cortex is required for object-in-place scene memory but not performance of a strategy implementation task. Journal of Neuroscience, 27, 11327-11333.

Mitchell, A. S., Baxter, M. G., and Gaffan, D. (2007). Dissociable performance on scene learning and strategy implementation after lesions to magnocellular mediodorsal thalamic nucleus. Journal of Neuroscience, 27, 11888-11895.

Baxter, M. G., Murphy, K. L., Crosby, G., and Culley, D. J. (2008). Different behavioral effects of neurotoxic dorsal hippocampal lesions placed under either isoflurane or propofol anesthesia. Hippocampus, 18, 245-250. Epub 30 Nov 2007.

Baxter, M. G., Browning, P. G. F., and Mitchell, A. S. (2008). Perseverative interference with object-in-place scene learning in rhesus monkeys with bilateral ablation of ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. Learning & Memory, 15, 126-132.

Wilson, C. R. E., Baxter, M. G., Easton, A., and Gaffan, D. (2008). Addition of fornix transection to frontal-temporal disconnection increases the impairment in object-in-place memory in macaque monkeys. European Journal of Neuroscience, 27, 1814-1822.

Zhuo, J. M., Prakasam, A., Murray, M. E., Zhang, H.-Y., Baxter, M. G., Samburmurti, K., and Nicolle, M. M. (2008). An increase in Aβ42 in the prefrontal cortex is associated with a reversal learning impairment in Alzheimer's disease model Tg2576 APPsw mice. Current Alzheimer Research, 5, 385-391.

Baxter, M. G., Gaffan, D., Kyriazis, D. A., and Mitchell, A. S. (2008). Dorsolateral prefrontal lesions do not impair tests of scene learning and decision-making that require frontal-temporal interaction. European Journal of Neuroscience, 28, 491-499.

Mitchell, A. S., Browning, P. G. F., Wilson, C. R. E., Baxter, M. G., and Gaffan, D. (2008). Dissociable roles for cortical and subcortical structures in memory acquisition and retrieval. Journal of Neuroscience, 28, 8387-8396.

Baxter, M. G. (2009). Involvement of medial temporal lobe structures in memory and perception. Neuron, 61, 667-677.

Baxter, M. G., Gaffan, D., Kyriazis, D. A., and Mitchell, A. S. (2009). Ventrolateral prefrontal cortex is required for performance of a strategy implementation task but not reinforcer devaluation effects in rhesus monkeys. European Journal of Neuroscience, 29, 2049-2059.

Browning, P. G. F., Gaffan, D., Croxson, P. L., and Baxter, M. G. (2009). Severe scene learning impairment, but intact recognition memory, after cholinergic depletion of inferotemporal cortex followed by fornix transection. Cerebral Cortex. Epub 15 May 2009.