Neuroscience Faculty
All of our faculty members have active research programs and are involved in graduate student training. Feel free to contact any of our Neuroscience Program faculty listed below by clicking on the link to their email address.
| Name | Campus | Specialty | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kenneth Boyd Baker | CCF | More on Baker | |
| Joseph Bedont | Kent | sleep; circadian rhythms; metabolism; behavioral homeostasis and adaptation; neurodegeneration. More on Bedont | |
| Lynn Bekris | CCF | Identifying and evaluating the functional impact of genetic and epigenetic factors in Alzheimer's disease pathogenesis. More on Bekris | |
| Cornelia Bergmann | CCF | Immune responses to viral infections in the central nervous system. More on Bergmann | |
| Heather Caldwell | Kent | Neuropeptide regulation of social behaviors and neuropyschiatric disorders. More on Caldwell | |
| Wilson Chung | Kent | Neuroendocrine brain, androgens, fibroblast growth factor signaling. More on Chung | |
| Robert Clements | Kent | More on Clements | |
| Lique Coolen | Kent | Mechanisms by which spinal cord injury affects urogenital and sexual function, neurobiology of addiction and understanding neural circuits that mediate female reproductive function and dysfunction. More on Coolen | |
| Samuel Crish | NEOMED | Glaucoma, axonal transport, structures and functions. More on Crish | |
| Hod Dana | CCF | More on Dana | |
| Altaf Darvesh | NEOMED | Development of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory strategies for neoplastic an neurodegenerative diseases, as well as psychiatric disorders. More on Darvesh | |
| Dimitrios Davalos | CCF | The Dimitrios Davalos lab studies the interactions between blood vessels, neurons and microglia in health and disease. More on Davalos | |
| Christine Dengler-Crish | NEOMED | Early disease mechanisms in dementia; sensory system disruptions and homestatic dysregulation in Alzheimer's disease. More on Crish | |
| Tara DeSilva | CCF | More on DeSilva | |
| Ranjan Dutta | CCF | We investigate the role of myelin forming cells and their dysfunction in neurological diseases. More on Dutta | |
| David Escobar Sanabria | CCF | ||
| Sheila Fleming | NEOMED | More on Fleming | |
| Alexander Galazyuk | NEOMED | Neuroscience of hearing, critical role of timing in sound processing. More on Galazyuk | |
| Rebecca German | NEOMED | Neurophysiology and biomechanics. Regulation of feeding and pathophysiology of dysphagia. More on German | |
| T. Lee Gilman | Kent | Influences of diet, stress and genetic variation on emotions, behavior, and overall brain & body health. More on Gilman. | |
| Adam Goodwill | NEOMED | Mechanisms of coronary flow control, studies of cardiac function and identification of cardioprotective pathways. More on Goodwill | |
| Julia Jones Huyck | Kent | More on Huyck | |
| John D. Johnson | Kent | Neural-immune interactions, brain cytokines, mood, behavior, stress and immunity. More on Johnson | |
| Woo-Yang Kim | Kent | Brain development, neurodevelopmental disorders, autism, intellectual disability, brain circuit, neural stem cell. More on Kim | |
| Michael Lehman | Kent | Reproductive neuroendocrine system of the brain in mammals as governed by intricate neural and hormonal communication between the brain, pituitary gland and gonads. More on Lehman | |
| Antoine Louveau | CCF | More on Louveau | |
| Yong Lu | NEOMED | Neurotransmitter systems, GABA, glutamate, audition. More on Lu | |
| William Lynch | NEOMED | Mechanisms of neurodegeneration, CNS gene therapy, RNA tumor virus pathogenesis, microglia development. More on Lynch | |
| Ryota Matsuoka | CCF | Developmental neuroscience, brain barriers, brain-blood communications, brain vascular cell heterogeneity, neurovascular morphogenesis, and cerebrovascular diseases. More on Matsuoka | |
| Jennifer McDonough | Kent | Regenerative medicine, mitochondrial dysfunction and epigenetic mechanisms in multiple sclerosis. More on McDonough | |
| Jeffrey Mellott | NEOMED | Age-related changes to inhibitory circuitry in the auditory pathways. More on Mellott | |
| Eric Mintz | Kent | Behavioral neurobiology, circadian rhythms, feeding, and social behavior, sex differences in biological rhythms. More on Mintz | |
| Aleisha Moore | Kent | The Moore lab aims to define and understand neuronal networks regulating gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) neurons, the final output cells in the brain controlling fertility. Currently, we are funded by the National Institutes of Health to investigate whether changes in the regulation of GnRH neurons by cells co-expressing the neuropeptides Kisspeptin, Neurokinin B and Dynorphin (aka KNDy neurons) leads to infertility in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), the most common endocrinopathy in women worldwide. To achieve this, we use a preclinical model of PCOS combined with genetic, anatomical, and functional tools to identify and analyze how changes within KNDy neurons and associated networks lead to the development of PCOS symptoms. | |
| Devin Mueller | Kent | Neural mechanisms of learning and memory that underlie drug use and emotional regulation. More on Mueller | |
| Bruna Mussoi | Kent | Age-related changes in speech perception, auditory electrophysiology, effects of cognition. More on Mussoi | |
| Colleen Novak | Kent | Neural and endocrine mechanisms of thermogenesis in obesity. More on Novak | |
| Moses Oyewumi | NEOMED | Drug delivery, nanotechnology, cancer, neurodegenerative diseases. More on Oyewumi | |
| Nikhil Panicker | CCF | More on Panicker | |
| Richard Piet | Kent | Neurophysiological mechanisms involved in regulating the activity of the gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) neurons and their contributions to biological timing and fertility. More on Piet | |
| Gunnar Poplawski | CCF | Translational therapies for neurodegenerative diseases, stem cell and gene therapies for spinal cord injury, in vitro and in vivo models of glioblastomas, hIPSC derived neurons to study regeneration. More on Poplawski | |
| Mary Ann Raghanti | Kent | Comparative neurobiology, evolution, cognition, behavior. More on Raghanti | |
| Erin Reed-Geaghan |
NEOMED |
My lab is interested in the role of the immune system in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Specifically, we seek to understand the ways in which the brain’s resident immune cells, microglia, contribute to the neuroinflammatory processes driving neurodegeneration. We believe microglia from men and women respond differently in AD, contributing to the sex differences in disease onset and progression, and we’re working on identifying the reasons for these differences. We are also interested in how these cells communicate with the circulating peripheral immune system, and the ways in which these interactions affect disease progression. | |
| Angela Ridgel | Kent | Motor functions, Parkinsons disease, rehabilitation. More on Ridgel | |
| Merri Rosen | NEOMED | Effects of developmental stress and hearing loss on auditory perception and neural circuity. More on Rosen | |
| Brett Schofield | NEOMED | Functional anatomy of auditory pathways. More on Schofield | |
| Sharad Shanbhag | NEOMED | The amygdala's role in vocal communication. More on Shanbhag | |
| Ronald Seese | NEOMED | More on Seese | |
| Woo-Shik Shin (Austin) | NEOMED |
Novel combination antibacterial therapy against drug resistance ESKAPE pathogens. Drug repurposing and combinational approach to block abnormal protein aggregation in Alzheimer’s disease. Our lab focuses on computational structure-based drug design and drug delivery system for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and other degenerative disorders. Current research is driven by two key topics: How to develop new therapeutic approach for neurodegenerative and other brain diseases? How to design the blood-brain barrier shuttle peptides with neuronal specificity? |
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| Matthew Smith | NEOMED | More on Smith | |
| Hoonkyo Suh | CCF | In the adult hippocampus, new neurons are continuously generated and integrated into neural circuits. This brain plasticity or brain remodeling process is essential for cognitive, emotional, social, and addictive behaviors. The major goal of the Suh lab’s research is to understand how precise production and connection of newborn neurons contributes to cognition, emotion, and addiction and how disrupted plasticity (remodeling process) leads to major deficits in learning and memory and emotional stability. By using the state of art methods such as virus-mediated neural circuit mapping, Ca2+ imaging and multimodal MRI, and genetic manipulation to control neural circuits (DREADD and Optogenetics), we are dedicated to research to understand anatomy and function of neural circuits that are formed by newborn neurons in the adult brain, with a hope that hippocampal neurogenesis may serve as neural substrate and target to understand and treat brain conditions that have cognitive, emotional, social, and addictive impairments. | |
| Bruce Trapp | CCF | More on Trapp | |
| Sean Veney | Kent | Behavioral neuroendocrinology, sexual differentiation of the brain, syrinx anatomy, neuroethology of birdsong. More on Veney | |
| Jeffrey Wenstrup | NEOMED | Neural mechanisms of hearing and acoustic communication, including emotional responses to sound. More on Wenstrup | |
| Jessica Williams | CCF | More on Williams | |
| Bradley Winters | NEOMED | Cellular neurophysiology of brainstem sound localization circuits that process timing and intensity differences between the two ears. More on Winters |