Michael Zigmond

Michael J. Zigmond is Professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Zigmond received his undergraduate degree from Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in chemical engineering in 1963. He then was trained in neuroscience at the University of Chicago (Ph.D., 1968) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh in 1970. He currently co-directs the university's program in Parkinson's disease and related disorders.

Zigmond is the Program Director of an NINDS-sponsored Program Project Grant on basal ganglia and Parkinsonism and is the recipient of a MERIT award from NIMH for his work on the neurochemical effects of acute and chronic stress. He also serves on the editorial board of several journals, served as secretary of the Society for Neuroscience from 1994 to 1996, and is an active member of the advisory board of the Society of Neuroscientists of Africa.

Zigmond has been involved in interdisciplinary training in neuroscience for some time. He served as the first director of training for the University's Center of Neuroscience (1983-1989) and has been the director of an NIMH-supported training grant since 1984. In 1990-91, he served as president of the Association of Neuroscience Departments and Programs. In 1996, he was appointed to the faculty of the University's School of Education.

Selected Bibliography

Zigmond MJ. When it comes to communications between neurons, synapses are over-rated: Insights from an animal model of parkinsonism. Progress in Brain Research, 125: 317-326, 2000.

Zigmond MJ, Fischer, BA. Beyond fabrication and plagiarism: The little murders of everyday science, Science Engineering Ethics, 8:229-234, 2002.

Zigmond, Michael J. et al. (Eds.). Fundamental Neuroscience. Academic Press: 1999.