Thomas J. Carew

Who is Thomas J. Carew?

Thomas Carew is an American neuroscientist whose interests center on the behavioral, cellular, and molecular analyses of learning and memory. His work provides provide strong empirical support for the theoretically important idea that different temporal phases of memory consolidation can be best identified not by their different temporal domains, but by their unique molecular signatures.

Early in his career, in collaboration with Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel and colleagues, Carew provided the first evidence Aplysia californica—the California sea slug—for both long-term memory and associative learning in this powerful model system. These discoveries gave rise to a wide range of influential synaptic and molecular studies that continue in many laboratories to the present day.

Carew subsequently developed four lines of research that provide mechanistic insights into learning and memory.