Martin Duncan

Biography

Dr Martin undertook his PhD with Professor Richard Morris in the Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh, studying the role of metabotropic glutamate receptors in hippocampal synaptic plasticity and memory. After completing his PhD, he conducted postdoctoral research in the same laboratory, this time focussing on the mechanisms of long-term memory formation, before starting a fixed-term lectureship in neuroscience, and acting as principal investigator on a Wellcome-funded project concerning the synaptic basis of long-term memory (see Shires et al., 2012). In 2013, Dr Martin joined the University of Dundee’s Division of Neuroscience, first as manager of the newly created Behavioural Neuroscience Core Facility, and subsequently as a Discovery Fellow. His current research focusses on the role of synaptic changes in both natural and drug-associated reward.

Research Interest

Dr Martin’s recent research has focussed primarily on the cellular and synaptic mechanisms involved in regulating the persistence of memories, and their underlying changes in synaptic strength—in other words probing how and why important memories are retained and less pertinent information is rapidly discarded (see Shires et al., 2012). The occurrence of a rewarding (or novel) experience at, or around, the time of memory formation may play a key role in triggering the formation of a persistent memory. Accordingly, Dr Martin’s current research explores two related themes: 1) the role of neuromodulatory systems in the formation of long-term synaptic changes and 2) the synaptic basis of associations between reward (both natural and drug-related) and the environmental cues and context that are associated with reward. The latter project may have implications for our understanding of the mechanisms of drug addiction, especially the phenomenon of relapse after periods of abstinence.