Susana Lima

Portuguese neuroscientist

Susana Q. Lima is a Portuguese neuroscientist and principal investigator at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown in Lisbon, Portugal.^[1] Her research studies neural mechanisms of sexual behavior and mate choice.

Early life and education

Susana Lima was born in the Azores Islands, and moved to Northern Portugal when she was young. She attended middle and high school near Porto, Portugal. During her last six months of university in Portugal, Lima participated in a project abroad in Amsterdam where she studied the effect of heat shock in yeast.

In 2005, Lima obtained her Ph.D. from the doctoral program in Biology and Medicine at the Gulbenkian Institute for Science. During this time, she was able to study abroad in New York at Memorial Sloan Kettering as well as Yale University under the supervision of Gero Miesenböck. Following her Ph.D, Lima completed her postdoctoral research with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory under neuroscientist Anthony Zador.^[2]

Research career

Lima completed her Ph.D. at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York working in Gero Miesenböck’s lab. She spent five years researching and developing optogenetics, a research technique that uses light to activate a single neuron in order to study the processes activated by the neuron. Her findings, published in Cell in 2005, were the first reported use of optogenetics.^[2] Lima introduced P2X2 receptors, activated by ATP, into flies in order to activate specific neurons using a photosensitive form of ATP. In this way, she was able to activate a specific neuronal path that controls the mechanism by which flies jump and fly by shining a light on transgenic flies.^[3]

During her postdoctoral training in Anthony Zador’s lab, Lima used optogenetic tools to develop a new method to identify neuronal subtypes in vivo on the rodent auditory cortex. This technique was called optotagging. After her accomplishments at Cold Spring Harbor, she returned to Portugal in 2008 and became part of the Champalimaud Neuroscience Program.

Some of her most recent research involves investigating how the brain controls sexual behavior through electrophysiology, optogenetics, anatomy and behavioral studies. Her publications include studies on prolactin’s involvement in the post-ejaculatory refractory period,^[4] how the ventromedial hypothalamus of the brain serves to control mating behavior,^[5] how sexual imprinting overrides order effects during sampling of prospective mates,^[6] and the neural circuits for reproduction.^[7] Her lab's long term goal is to test the hypothesis that mate choice has an impact on the regulation of sexual behavior.

Personal life

Soon after their marriage, Lima and her husband, Zachary Mainen, returned to Portugal to help start the Champalimaud Neuroscience Program.^[2]

References

^ "Why It's Important To Be Open About Animal Research". neuronline.sfn.org. Retrieved 2021-12-01.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Episode 14: Susana Lima, PhD". Conjugate: Illustration and Science Blog. Retrieved 2021-11-29.
^ Lima, Susana Q.; Miesenböck, Gero (2005-04-08). "Remote Control of Behavior through Genetically Targeted Photostimulation of Neurons". Cell. 121 (1): 141–152. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2005.02.004. ISSN 0092-8674. PMID 15820685. S2CID 14608546.
^ Valente, Susana; Marques, Tiago; Lima, Susana Q. (2021-01-04). "No evidence for prolactin's involvement in the post-ejaculatory refractory period". Communications Biology. 4 (1): 10. doi:10.1038/s42003-020-01570-4. ISSN 2399-3642. PMC 7782750. PMID 33398068.
^ Dias, Inês C.; Gutierrez-Castellanos, Nicolas; Ferreira, Liliana; Lima, Susana Q. (2021-05-01). "The Structural and Electrophysiological Properties of Progesterone Receptor-Expressing Neurons Vary along the Anterior-Posterior Axis of the Ventromedial Hypothalamus and Undergo Local Changes across the Reproductive Cycle". eNeuro. 8 (3). doi:10.1523/ENEURO.0049-21.2021. ISSN 2373-2822. PMC 8184219. PMID 33879568.
^ Moreira, Luís; Zinck, Léa; Nomoto, Kensaku; Lima, Susana Q. (2020-03-23). "Sexual imprinting overrides order effects during sampling of prospective mates". Current Biology. 30 (6): R259–R260. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2020.02.033. ISSN 0960-9822. PMID 32208146. S2CID 214620699.
^ Lenschow, Constanze; Lima, Susana Q (2020-02-01). "In the mood for sex: neural circuits for reproduction". Current Opinion in Neurobiology. Neurobiology of Behavior. 60: 155–168. doi:10.1016/j.conb.2019.12.001. ISSN 0959-4388. PMID 31901622. S2CID 209521655.