Martha Constantine-Paton facts for kids

Martha Constantine-Paton is a smart brain scientist, also called a neuroscientist. She works at a famous university called the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is a professor there and part of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research.

Studying the Brain

Before coming to MIT in 1999, Martha Constantine-Paton taught at other well-known universities like Yale and Princeton. She is an expert in how our brains change and grow. This includes how our vision develops.

She is famous for her studies using frogs with three eyes! In these studies, she added a third eye to a tiny tadpole. This showed how the brain can adapt and make new connections. This ability of the brain to change is called neural plasticity.

Her work with the three-eyed frogs helped show how important special brain parts called NMDA receptors are for brain development. These receptors are like tiny switches that help brain cells talk to each other.

Today, she studies how our brains react to what we see. Her research also helps us understand brain conditions like schizophrenia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which is also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

Personal Life

Martha Constantine-Paton is married to H. Robert Horvitz. He is also a scientist and won a Nobel Prize for his work.