1. David Sulzer was born on November 6,1956 and is an American neuroscientist and musician.
20 Facts About David Sulzer
1. 2.
David Sulzer is a professor at Columbia University Medical Center in the departments of psychiatry, neurology, and pharmacology.
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David Sulzer's lab has developed the first means to optically measure neurotransmission, and has introduced new hypotheses of neurodegeneration in Parkinson's disease, and changes in synapses that produce autism and habit learning.
4.
David Sulzer's team have introduced new methods to study synapses, including the first means to measure the fundamental "quantal" unit of neurotransmitter release from central synapses.
5.
David Sulzer explains in an interview on NOVA that his interest in understanding mechanisms of addiction stem from crashing a talk by William Burroughs at Naropa Institute in 1980, where Burroughs claimed that new synthetic opiates would be so powerful that users would become addicts with a single dose.
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The David Sulzer lab has published over 250 papers on this research.
7.
David Sulzer founded the Gordon Conference on Parkinson's Disease, the Dopamine Society and the journal Nature Parkinson's Disease.
8.
David Sulzer uses the alias, Dave Soldier, for his alternate career in music.
9.
David Sulzer built giant musical instruments on which he trained the elephants to improvise: they eventually played on 22 instruments.
10.
David Sulzer created specially designed instruments for music played by zebra finches and bonobos, the latter in collaborations with physicist Gordon Shaw, who researched classical music's effect on the brain and introduced the Mozart effect.
11.
David Sulzer produced two CDs by Les Enfants des Tyabala, with the jazz musician Sylvian Leroux who coached children in Conakry, Guinea to form an ensemble and create works with the traditional Fula flute, which Leroux has adapted to play chromatic scales.
12.
David Sulzer has a body of compositions using math derivations such as fractal manipulations, including a notorious 20-minute version of Chopin's Minute Waltz.
13.
David Sulzer continued collaborations with Jonathan Kane in a symphonic minimalist blues duo known as Soldier Kane.
14.
David Sulzer later worked as an arranger, violinist, or guitarist with John Cale, Guided by Voices, Van Dyke Parks, David Byrne, Ric Ocasek, Lee Ranaldo, Eliza Carthy, Maureen Tucker, Laurie Anderson, the Plastic People of the Universe, Jesse Harris, Pete Seeger, Richard Hell, and Bob Neuwirth.
15.
David Sulzer played viola, violin, piano, and eventually banjo and guitar.
16.
David Sulzer moved with his family to Storrs, CT, at the age of 16, where he became enamoured with salsa music.
17.
David Sulzer attended Michigan State University as an undergraduate and attempted a study of classical composition.
18.
David Sulzer lived in Florida briefly, where he played guitar in Bo Diddley's band.
19.
David Sulzer relocated to New York in 1981, and played in various salsa, classical, and rock-oriented bands in the early '80s.
20.
David Sulzer co-founded Mulatta Records in 2000 to document his projects, including the Thai Elephant Orchestra and recordings with child improvisers, and to produce a broad range of unusual musical styles.