Biography of Kasai

I graduated from the University of Tokyo School of Medicine and became a Humboldt fellow in the Max-Planck Institute, Germany. After coming back to Japan, I was an Assistant and then Associate Professor of the Physiology Department of the University of Tokyo, and promoted to Professor of the National Institute of Physiological Sciences, Okazaki. Currently, I have been developing optical methods (two-photon uncaging of caged-glutamate), and revealed that synaptic morphology shows a tight correlation with connectivity, and synapses rapidly enlarge when learning stimuli are given to enhance connectivity. I then moved to the Center for Disease and Integrative Medicine in the University of Tokyo, where I have been pursuing optical and molecular investigations of learning and memory in the brain and its related psychiatric disorders.

1988-1990     Humboldt Fellow at the Max-Planck Institute.

1990-1993   Assistant Professor at the University of Tokyo.

1993-1999  Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo.

1999-2005  Professor, National Institute for Physiological Sciences.

2005-2022   Professor at the University of Tokyo (Medical School)

2022-       Project Professor of the University of Tokyo (Internal Research Institute for Neurointelligence (WPI-IRCN)

2003  Tsukahara Prize from the Brain Science Foundation of Japan

2010 Uehara Prize of the Uehara Memorial Foundation

2016  Medical Award of The Japan Medical Association

2018  Medal of Purple Ribbon

2022  Imperial prize & Japan Academy Prize

2023  FeIlow of IUPS Academy