David Sulzer

David Sulzer is an American neuroscientist and Professor at Columbia University Medical Center in the Departments of Psychiatry, Neurology, and Pharmacology. Sulzer's lab investigates the interaction between the synapses of the cerebral cortex and the basal ganglia, including the dopamine system, in habit formation, planning, decision making, and diseases of the system. His lab has developed the first means to optically measure neurotransmission, and has introduced new hypotheses of neurodegeneration in Parkinson's disease, changes in synapses that produce autism and habit learning. Additionally, as a musical artist, he is known as Dave Soldier.

The Sulzer laboratory has made contributions to understanding the basal ganglia and dopamine neurons, brain cells of central importance in translating will to action. They have introduced new methods to demonstrate how the synapses work, including the first means to measure the fundamental "quantal" unit of neurotransmitter release from central synapses and the first video means to observe release of neurotransmitter from individual synapses.

The fundamental unit of chemical neurotransmission is due to the "quantal release event", which is due to the fusion of synaptic vesicles with the plasma membrane, which provides for release of the encapsulated neurotransmitter from the synapse. Sulzer and colleagues reported the first direct recordings of quantal neurotransmitter release from brain synapses using an electrochemistry technique known as amperometry using microelectrodes in an approach previously used by Mark Wightman, a chemist at the University of North Carolina, to measure release of adrenaline from adrenal chromaffin cells.