Larry W. Swanson

Larry W. Swanson (born December 13, 1945, in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina) is an American neuroscientist who has held positions at Washington University School of Medicine, The Salk Institute of Biological Studies, and the University of Southern California, focusing on how the nervous system functions. Swanson is best known for his complex studies of how neurons control different aspects of motivation and emotional behavior.

Swanson received a bachelor's degree in Chemistry from Pomona College, California, in 1968 and a Ph.D. in Neurobiology from Washington University in 1972. He was a postdoctoral fellow with W. Maxwell Cowan at the Washington University School of Medicine and a research associate with the Italian Nobel Laureate, Rita Levi-Montalcini, in the Department of Biology at Washington University. 

He began his career on the faculty at the University of Washington. He quickly moved to California to work at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In 1990 he joined the faculty at the University of Southern California, where he was appointed the Milo Don and Lucille Appleman Professor of Biological Sciences in 1995.

The types of studies presented by Swanson were/are: what parts of the body are involved with the nervous system, both the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system, and how actions are influenced by the different parts of the nervous system. Since Swanson has a Ph.D. in Neurobiology, where most of his studies focus on the brain and how it interacts with many different aspects of life. The brain is part of the central nervous system, along with the spinal cord, which is a main aspect of Swanson's study on how the brain is structured and how different neurotransmitters can affect the brain. 

Also, Swanson has an extensive amount of research dedicated to the brain and the layout of the brain and what is called the “fundamental plan.” The “fundamental plans” consists of the layout of mammalian brains, specifically rat brains. The layout created of the rat brains was the first ever computer graphical analysis of the brain produced, which has developed several different types of computer analysis programs for the structural development of mammalian brains, showing a growing development in the science world. One example of the "fundamental plan" being utilized by Swanson was the research proposed on the amygdala. 

This showed that there are different types of cells present in different divisions of the amygdala and that there are different functions associated with the different divisions. A similar study conducted by Swanson and Joel Hahn studied the formation of the hippocampus, specifically focusing on the roles of the hippocampus: memory, emotion, and motivated behaviors. This demonstrated relationships between different areas of the hippocampus, like that of the amygdala above. These layouts lead to the structural analysis of the central nervous system of mammals and the neuroanatomy present within the mammal.

Larry Swanson has done a majority of his scientific research on rats and their nervous system. One study showed the structure of the rat's brain and the effect on the central nervous system, which encompasses the brain and spinal cord. There are many neuronal bodies that reside in the brain and spinal cord of mammalian bodies, specific rats in Swanson's study. The job of a neuronal body is to transmit information from the brain to other parts of the body. 

Therefore, the study focused on how their signals are being transmitted to produce signals elsewhere in the rat's body, such as the peripheral nervous system. Swanson was the first person to develop the Neurome Project on rats. This project took place over the course of many studies and eventually developed a connectome of the whole central nervous system. When Swanson and Bota completed a Neurome Project on rats, it was an analysis of the rat's body with all the neural connections going throughout the body. The study of rat neuroma projects continued and is now done by Larry Swanson, Joel Hahn, and Olaf Sporns.

Swanson’s research came up with three conclusions that focused on the nervous system. The first conclusion was a group of cells: medial preoptic nucleus, dorsal pre-mammillary nucleus, and ventral pre-mammillary nucleus all generated a projection with one branch going to the brainstem and the second branch to the thalamus. The second conclusion was that the nuclei stated above form parts of circuits, which aid in how one behaves. This plays a role in the social behavior and the survival of a species. The third and last conclusion was that the ventromedial column of the nuclei is part of the behavioral control column.