Division of Sleep Medicine @ Harvard Medical School
Trainee Profile
Sean W. Cain, PhD
Research Fellow in Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Research Fellow, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Address
BWH Division of Sleep Medicine221 Longwood Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
USA
Phone 617-732-5174
Email swcain@rics.bwh.harvard.edu
Research Unit(s)
Division of Sleep Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Research Interests
My research interests include rhythms in cognitive performance, neurobiology of nonphotic input to the clock and the effect of aging on circadian function and cognition.
During my PhD work at the University of Toronto, I discovered that optimal performance on place learning tasks in different rodent species depended on the matching of time of testing with time of training. This “Time Stamp” effect was found in both aversively motivated and appetitively motivated tasks. Time of training appears to be a context feature that is registered during conditioning, even though time itself is not an explicit discriminative cue in these experiments. Rodents therefore seem to be predisposed to anticipate the recurrence of arousing events at circa-24 hour intervals. Interestingly, the Time Stamp effect is observed in arrhythmic animals with lesions of the suprachiasmatic nucleus, implicating rhythmic control of motivated behavior outside of the master circadian clock.
Currently, I am examining rhythms in cognitive performance in human subjects.
During my PhD work at the University of Toronto, I discovered that optimal performance on place learning tasks in different rodent species depended on the matching of time of testing with time of training. This “Time Stamp” effect was found in both aversively motivated and appetitively motivated tasks. Time of training appears to be a context feature that is registered during conditioning, even though time itself is not an explicit discriminative cue in these experiments. Rodents therefore seem to be predisposed to anticipate the recurrence of arousing events at circa-24 hour intervals. Interestingly, the Time Stamp effect is observed in arrhythmic animals with lesions of the suprachiasmatic nucleus, implicating rhythmic control of motivated behavior outside of the master circadian clock.
Currently, I am examining rhythms in cognitive performance in human subjects.
Mentor(s)
Research Funding
Natural Sciences and Research Council of Canada
Teaching
Biological Rhythms (JZP328; University of Toronto)
Selected Publications
Cain SW, Verwey M, Hood S, Leknickas P, Karatsoreos I, Yeomans JS, Ralph MR. Reward and aversive stimuli produce similar nonphotic phase shifts.
Behav Neurosci. 2004 Feb;118(1):131-7. [PMID: 14979789]
Cain SW, Karatsoreos I, Gautam N, Konar Y, Funk D, McDonald RJ, Ralph MR. Blunted cortisol rhythm is associated with learning impairment in aged hamsters.
Physiol Behav. 2004 Sep 15;82(2-3):339-44. [PMID: 15276797]
Cain SW, Chou T, Ralph MR. Circadian modulation of performance on an aversion-based place learning task in hamsters.
Behav Brain Res. 2004 Apr 2;150(1-2):201-5. [PMID: 15033293]
Cain SW, Ko CH, Chalmers JA, Ralph MR. Time of day modulation of conditioned place preference in rats depends on the strain of rat used.
Neurobiol Learn Mem. 2004 May;81(3):217-20. [PMID: 15082023]
Cheng HY, Obrietan K, Cain SW, Lee BY, Agostino PV, Joza NA, Harrington ME, Ralph MR, Penninger JM. Dexras1 potentiates photic and suppresses nonphotic responses of the circadian clock.
Neuron. 2004 Sep 2;43(5):715-28. [PMID: 15339652]
Kippin TE, Cain SW, Masum Z, Ralph MR. Neural stem cells show bidirectional experience-dependent plasticity in the perinatal mammalian brain.
J Neurosci. 2004 Mar 17;24(11):2832-6. [PMID: 15028777]
Behav Neurosci. 2004 Feb;118(1):131-7. [PMID: 14979789]
Cain SW, Karatsoreos I, Gautam N, Konar Y, Funk D, McDonald RJ, Ralph MR. Blunted cortisol rhythm is associated with learning impairment in aged hamsters.
Physiol Behav. 2004 Sep 15;82(2-3):339-44. [PMID: 15276797]
Cain SW, Chou T, Ralph MR. Circadian modulation of performance on an aversion-based place learning task in hamsters.
Behav Brain Res. 2004 Apr 2;150(1-2):201-5. [PMID: 15033293]
Cain SW, Ko CH, Chalmers JA, Ralph MR. Time of day modulation of conditioned place preference in rats depends on the strain of rat used.
Neurobiol Learn Mem. 2004 May;81(3):217-20. [PMID: 15082023]
Cheng HY, Obrietan K, Cain SW, Lee BY, Agostino PV, Joza NA, Harrington ME, Ralph MR, Penninger JM. Dexras1 potentiates photic and suppresses nonphotic responses of the circadian clock.
Neuron. 2004 Sep 2;43(5):715-28. [PMID: 15339652]
Kippin TE, Cain SW, Masum Z, Ralph MR. Neural stem cells show bidirectional experience-dependent plasticity in the perinatal mammalian brain.
J Neurosci. 2004 Mar 17;24(11):2832-6. [PMID: 15028777]
Site Map | Contact Us | © 2006 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
