Kay M. Tye (born c. 1981)
is an American
neuroscientist
A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, neural circuits, and glial ...
and professor and Wylie Vale Chair
in the
Salk Institute for Biological Sciences. Her research has focused on using
optogenetics
Optogenetics is a biological technique to control the activity of neurons or other cell types with light. This is achieved by expression of light-sensitive ion channels, pumps or enzymes specifically in the target cells. On the level of individ ...
to identify connections in the brain that are involved in innate emotion, motivation and social behaviors.
Early life and education
Tye was raised in
Ithaca, New York
Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named ...
, where both of her parents worked at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
. Her parents
Henry Tye and
Bik Kwoon Tye had emigrated from
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...
. As a child, Tye worked in her mother's laboratory organizing
pipette tips.
She completed a
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years.
The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...
with a major in
cognitive science at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
(MIT) from 1999 to 2003.
After graduating, she spent time learning
breakdancing
Breakdancing, also called breaking or b-boying/b-girling, is an athletic style of street dance originating from the African American and Puerto Rican communities in the United States. While diverse in the amount of variation available in t ...
and
backpacked around Australia for a year before returning to the
University of California, San Francisco
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It con ...
(UCSF), to begin her graduate studies in
neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developme ...
.
[ She joined the laboratory of neurobiologist Patricia Janak where she completed her thesis showing that neuronal activity was increased in a region of the brain associated with processing of emotions, called the ]amygdala
The amygdala (; plural: amygdalae or amygdalas; also '; Latin from Greek, , ', 'almond', 'tonsil') is one of two almond-shaped clusters of nuclei located deep and medially within the temporal lobes of the brain's cerebrum in complex verte ...
, in rats learning to associate a stimulus with a reward. Her thesis work was published in ''Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...
''[ and won the Donald B. Lindsley Prize in Behavioral Neuroscience and the Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award. Tye received her PhD in 2008.
]
Career and research
From 2008 to 2009, Tye worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at the UCSF Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center and then at Stanford University from 2009 to 2011. At Stanford, she was mentored by Karl Deisseroth
Karl Alexander Deisseroth (born November 18, 1971) is an American scientist. He is the D.H. Chen Professor of Bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University.
He is known for creating and developing the technolo ...
in optogenetics
Optogenetics is a biological technique to control the activity of neurons or other cell types with light. This is achieved by expression of light-sensitive ion channels, pumps or enzymes specifically in the target cells. On the level of individ ...
, a technique that uses light to activate or inhibit specific neurons.
Tye returned to MIT in 2012 as an assistant professor at the university's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory is, along with the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, one of the three neuroscience groups at MIT. The institute is focused on studying all aspect ...
. Her research has focused on answering questions on how the same neural mechanism in the amygdala of the brain can regulate such different behavioral responses to negative and positive environmental cues. Using optogenetics to control neurons by modulating how they transmit signals in the brain, her work seeks to determine whether there are different neuronal networks in the amygdala that communicate with either the fear or reward circuits of the brain. Through this research, Tye and colleagues were able to identify distinct populations of neurons that have different functions, morphology and genetics and were able to confirm that these differences are associated with separate roles in processing information that leads to either positive or negative reinforcement. Her work has contributed to the understanding of social behaviors such as reward-seeking and anxiety, and provided insights into the basis of psychiatric diseases.
Her work has also looked at alcoholism and brain circuitry, where Tye led a team of researchers to identify how the brain is altered in mice that predicted increased levels of compulsive drinking. The work is suggested to lead to understanding as to why some people become addicted to alcohol, while others do not.
Tye received the NIH Director's New Innovator Award in 2013 and the NARSAD
The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that funds mental health
Mental health encompasses emotional, psychological, and social well-being, influencing cognition, perception, and behavior. It ...
Young Investigator Award in 2014. In 2014, she was named one of ''MIT Technology Review
''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and editorially independent of the university. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "The" in ...
'' TR35
The Innovators Under 35 is a peer-reviewed annual award and listicle published by ''MIT Technology Review'' magazine, naming the world's top 35 innovators under the age of 35. at ''Technology Review'' with lists of winners at technologyreview.com
...
top innovators under the age 35 for her use of optogenetics in identifying neural circuits involved in anxiety and social interaction.
In November 2019, Tye gave a TED Talk at the National Academy of Sciences titled "What Investigating Neural Pathways Can Reveal About Mental Health".
Publications
# Siciliano, C.A., Noamany, H., Chang, C.J., Brown, A.R., Chen, X., Leible, D., Lee, J.J., Wang, J., Vernon, A.N., Vander Weele, C.M., Kimchi, E.Y., Heiman, M., Tye, K.M. A cortical-brainstem circuit predicts and governs compulsive alcohol drinking. (2019) ''Science.'' 366(6468):1008-1012. DOI: 10.1126/science.aay1186
#Neural mechanisms of social homeostasis. Matthews GA & Tye KM. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2019 Mar 15. DOI: 10.1111/nyas.14016
Awards and honors
* Society for Neuroscience (SFN) Young Investigator Award (2016)
* Daniel X. Freedman Award (2016)
* Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) (2016)
* New York Stem Cell Foundation – Robertson Investigator (2015–2019)
* McKnight Scholar Award (2015–2018)
* Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award (2015)
* NIMH (2014–2018)
* Sloan Research Fellow, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (2014–2015)
* NARSAD Young Investigator Award (2014–2015)
* TR35, Technology Review's Top 35 Innovators Under 35 (2014)
* ACNP Associate Member (2014)
* NIH Director's New Innovator Award (2013–2018)
* Klingenstein Foundation Award (2013–2015)
* Whitehead Career Development Professorship (2013–2015)
* Whitehall Foundation Award (2012–2014)
* Kavli Foundation Frontiers Fellow
* Jeptha H. and Emily V. Wade Award (2012)
* Stanford University Post-Doctoral Award (2010)
* NRSA Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (2009–2012)
* European Brain and Behavior Society Post-Doctoral Fellow Award (2009)
* Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award (2009)
* Donald B. Lindsley Prize (2009)
* NSF Graduate Research Fellow (2005–2008)
References
External links
The Future of Emotion - Schrödinger at 75: The Future of Biology Lecture
Trinity College Dublin
CSHL Leading Strand 83rd Symposium - Brains and Behavior - 09 - Kay Tye Interview
*
Lifting the Veil on Neurons that Assign Good or Bad Associations to our Environment
, BBRF Webinar
MIT Meaning of Life Symposium Interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tye, Kay
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
American women neuroscientists
American neuroscientists
Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty
Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni
University of California, San Francisco alumni
American people of Hong Kong descent
Scientists from Ithaca, New York
21st-century American scientists
21st-century American women scientists
American people of Chinese descent
Sloan Fellows
Salk Institute for Biological Studies people
American women academics