Howard Mount

Dr. Howard Mount is an Associate Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto's Department of Psychiatry with previous cross-appointments to the Department of Physiology and Division of Neurology.

At the University of Toronto, Dr. Howard Mount began his education as an environmental scientist. He developed an ongoing interest in the neurochemistry of behaviour, particularly the role of monoaminergic systems, as a result of his master's thesis work in behavioural toxicology, as well as work he did at the University of Utrecht investigating drug-induced sensitization and developing a federal report on pyrethroid insecticides for the National Research Council Environmental Secretariat (Ottawa). Drs. Rémi Quirion and Patrica Boksa's laboratories at McGill University are where the doctoral thesis work was completed. It investigated how excitatory amino acids control cellular dopamine release.

He then joined the laboratories of Drs. Cheryl Dreyfus and Ira Black at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (UMDNJ) with postdoctoral fellowship funding from the Medical Research Council of Canada (MRCC) and the Fonds de la Recherche en Santé du Québec. There, he published novel cell survival-promoting interactions between transmitter receptors and neurotrophic factors as well as on the signalling states of proteins anchored within the post-synaptic density.

Dr. Mount made the important discovery that excitatory transmitters "turn-on" a p75NTR-mediated survival response to NGF by activating metabotropic receptors on cerebellar neurons. The finding prompted him to hypothesize that activation of p75NTR might restore Purkinje cells, which are severely depleted in ataxia-telangiectasia, a neurodegenerative disorder. With the help of the AT Children's Project, the MRCC, the CIHR New Investigator Award programme, the 2000 Basil O'Connor Starter Research Scholar Award (March of Dimes, NY), and the Ontario Premier's Research Excellence Award, this research launched his independent research career.

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