Neuroscience

Farran Briggs, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Physiology and Neurobiology
Research Description: The goals of the laboratory are to understand how neuronal circuits in the early visual system encode and process visual information and how spatial attention modulates these activities.

David J. Bucci, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences
Research Description: Behavioral and neurobiological factors that modulate learning and memory. Of particular interest are the neural mechanisms that are at the interface between attention and learning. We combine classical conditioning procedures with biochemical, pharmacological, and neuroanatomical techniques to study the role of cortical structures and subcortical neurochemical systems in these processes.

Robert A. Darnall, M.D.

Professor of Pediatrics and Physiology and Neurobiology
Research Description: The role of medullary serotonergic neurons in the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Inhibition of serotonergic neurons in the nucleus paragigantocellularis lateralis fragments sleep and decreases REM.

J. Andrew Daubenspeck, Ph.D.

Professor of Physiology and Neurobiology, Active Emeritus
Research Description: Cardiorespiratory control using heart rate variability and baroreflex characteristics to evaluate neonatal development and risk factors for sudden infant death.

Laura A. Flashman, Ph.D., ABPP

Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Director, Neuropsychology Program
Research Description: Neural mechanisms of cognitive complaints and deficits after Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and other neuropsychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease. Neural correlates of unawareness of illness and potential sources of outcome variance after seemingly similar injuries, including genetic risk factors, brain efficiency, premorbid factors, and response to treatment, using structural and functional MRI (fMRI) and genetics. Understand the effects of repetitive biomechanical force exposure in concussed and non-concussed collegiate and high school football and hockey players.

Rick Granger, Ph.D.

Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences
Research Description: We study computational and cognitive neuroscience: analyses of how our brains operate to perceive, comprehend and manipulate their environments, as well as how they fail in certain conditions. We strive both to understand and analyze brain circuits, and, where possible, to construct equivalent circuits -- ranging from fMRI neuroimaging studies to robotics. Throughout these studies, real-world applications are developed as our understanding deepens.

Alan I. Green, M.D.

Raymond Sobel Professor of Psychiatry, Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Chair, Department of Psychiatry
Research Description: Animal and human studies of the actions of antipsychotic drugs, as related to their use in patients with schizophrenia and substance use disorders. The work focuses on brain reward circuitry, and manipulation of this circuitry by antipsychotic drugs and other psychoactive agents.

Allan T. Gulledge, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Physiology and Neurobiology
Research Description: Our focus is the cellular neurophysiology of the cerebral cortex, with emphasis on understanding signal integration and transmission within individual neurons.

Leslie P. Henderson, Ph.D.

Professor of Physiology and Neurobiology and of Biochemistry
Research Description: The long-term goals of the laboratory are to understand how steroids alter the expression and function of ion channels involved in synaptic signaling, with specific emphasis on the actions of anabolic androgenic steroids.

William F. Hickey, M.D.

The John LaPorte Given Professor, Professor of Pathology, Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs
Research Description: Neuropathology, neuroimmunology, autoimmunity and inflammatory diseases of the CNS. Research focuses on problems related to the mechanisms of inflammation in the CNS. Laboratory techniques span the spectrum from molecular cloning to animal models of autoimmunity.

Gregory L. Holmes, M.D.

Professor of Medicine, Chief, Section of Neurology
Research Description: Effects of seizures on the developing brain. The laboratory focuses on the cognitive and electrophysiological consequences of recurrent seizures and status epilepticus.

Paul E. Holtzheimer, M.D.

Associate Professor of Psychiatry and of Surgery
Research Description: Neurobiology and treatment of mood disorders, primarily treatment-resistant depression. Current methodologies include functional and structural neuroimaging and focal neuromodulation techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation and deep brain stimulation.

William Kelley, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences
Research Description: My research uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to gain a better understanding of human memory formation. Specifically, my work focuses on how different kinds of information like words (verbal) or unfamiliar faces (non-verbal) are encoded into long-term memory. A related focus of my work is to use imaging techniques to explore how memory formation may become compromised as a result of damage to certain brain regions.

Stephen Lee, M.D., Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Medicine (Neurology)
Research Description: Molecular pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease; The laboratory studies the biological function of Parkinson's disease-associated genes using genetic, molecular, cellular, and model organism approaches.

James C. Leiter, M.D.

Professor of Physiology and Neurobiology and Medicine
Research Description: Respiratory neurobiology especially in the areas of pH regulation in neurons and astrocytes, central chemosensitivity and comparative aspects of rhythm generation.

Bryan W. Luikart, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Physiology and Neurobiology
Research Description: We study the molecular mechanisms that direct the formation of synapses onto new neurons as they integrate into the synaptic circuitry of the central nervous system.

Robert A. Maue, Ph.D.

Professor of Physiology and Neurobiology and of Biochemistry
Research Description: Cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying neuronal development in the CNS, particularly as related to neurodegenerative diseases; neurotrophin and growth factor actions; regulation of neuronal ion channels and genes; molecular biology; electrophysiology.

Thomas McAllister, M.D.

Professor of Psychiatry
Research Description: Traumatic brain injury, neuropsychiatric disorders, neuropharmacology, functional MRI.

Eugene E. Nattie, M.D.

Professor of Physiology and Neurobiology
Research Description: Central chemoreceptors that sense changes in brain pH and stimulate breathing. The role of central chemoreception in the medullary raphe in the sudden infant death syndrome.

William G. North, Ph.D.

Professor of Physiology and Neurobiology
Research Description: Neuropeptides in breast cancer, in small-cell carcinoma, and in Alzheimer's disease.

Jeffrey S. Taube, Ph.D.

Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences
Research Description: Neurobiology of spatial orientation and navigation, learning and memory. Understanding 1) the neurobiological basis of spatial cognition and navigation, and 2) the neurobiological mechanisms underlying learning and memory. We use single cell chronic unit recording techniques in rodents to correlate the activity of neurons with the animal's behavior.

Paul J. Whalen, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences
Research Description: Uses functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess the role of prefrontal and limbic circuits in the evaluation of events that predict biologically relevant outcomes. This work has implications for the understanding of the emotion fear as well as disorders of fear management (e.g., anxiety disorders).

Heather A. Wishart, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Research Description: Functional and Structual Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Neurobiological basis of heterogeneity in multiple sclerosis. A hallmark of multiple sclerosis (MS) is its interindividual heterogeneity. Dr. Wishart's research program uses structural and functional MRI and genotyping to discover neurobiological mechanisms of heterogeneity in symptomatology, course and treatment response in MS, with the ultimate aim of improving early, individualized characterization and treatment of the disease.

Hermes H. Yeh, Ph.D.

William W. Brown Professor and Chair, Department of Physiology and Neurobiology
Research Description: Cellular and molecular mechanisms of neuroreceptor interactions and plasticity in the adult and developing CNS.