Dr. Marcia H. Ratner is a Board Certified Toxicologist and Behavioral Neuroscientist. She earned her doctoral degree in Behavioral Neuroscience from the Boston University School of Medicine where she trained in the Department of Neurology under Drs. Robert G. Feldman and Raymon Durso. During her doctoral training, she was also an active member of the Environmental and Occupational Neurology Program. She subsequently completed a three year NIH-National Institute on Aging funded Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the Biochemistry of Aging under the supervision of Dr. David H. Farb in the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at the BUSM. Her training has provided her with genuine translational research experience in clinical as well as basic neuroscience and neurotoxicology. This unique training experience enables her to effectively evaluate how chemicals modify neurological function and the progression of neurodegenerative disease.

Dr. Ratner works with her colleague Dr. David Farb in the Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology where her interdisciplinary research focuses on investigating how chemicals (drugs and neurotoxicants) alter learning and memory function and disease progression in healthy subjects and those with neurodegenerative diseases. She currently employs basic behavioral and in vivo electrophysiological techniques in her studies of how chemicals modify hippocampal neural network activity and disease progression in animal models of age-related amnestic mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. The major advantage of in vivo electrophysiology over noninvasive measures such as surface electroencephalogram and functional imaging studies of regional cerebral blood flow is found in the ability of this technology to differentiate the activity of inhibitory interneurons from that of excitatory pyramidal cells both across brain regions and within subregions. This highly translational approach is well suited for target-based as well as repurposing studies of drug-induced changes in both single unit activity and local field potentials. A recent paper on which Dr. Ratner shares first authorship has shown that co-administration of low doses of the FDA approved anti epileptic drugs levetiracetam and valproic acid improves aspects of place cell firing dynamics including increasing spatial information content in aged rats (Robitsek et al, Hippocampus, 2015). Dr. Ratner recently authored an invited editorial on the future role of in vivo electrophysiology in preclinical drug discovery. The observations of Dr. Ratner and her colleagues suggest that the specificity with which, not just the rate at which, a neuron fires plays an important role in learning and memory function and, that interventions designed to increase the specificity with which hippocampal pyramidal cells fire may improve memory function in subjects with age-related amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

Dr. Ratner is a Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology. She is a member in good standing of the: Society of Toxicology; and American Academy of Clinical Toxicology; American Academy of Neurology, and American Psychological Association. Dr. Ratner has served as a scientific advisor to the Workplace Safety Insurance Board of Ontario, Canada. In addition to her work as a scientific advisor to government agencies, she also serves as an ad hoc advisor to biotech and pharmaceutical companies, and law firms. Dr. Ratner also serves as an ad hoc reviewer for several peer reviewed journals including: Neurology, Toxicology, Clinical Toxicology, Food and Chemical Toxicology, and BMC Pharmacology and Toxicology.

Dr. Ratner has expertise and training in methods used in preclinical drug discovery, and clinical behavioral neuroscience and neurotoxicology including:

Stereotactic Brain Surgery (Rodents)
In vivo Electrophysiology
Preclinical Animal Behavioral Models of: learning and memory function; anxiety; addiction; locomotor activity; and pain.
Clinical Neurology
Human Neuropsychological Assessment
Neuroimaging