Neuroscience AoC Faculty

Srdjan Antic
Prefrontal and somatosensory cortex; pyramidal neurons; synaptic transmission; excitatory neurotransmitters; the role of dendrites in synaptic integration; and dopaminergic modulation of dendritic excitability.

Byoung-Il Bae
Understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying human cortical development by comparing humans, ferrets, and mice with the same genetic mutation but with strikingly different phenotypes using state-of-the-art tools.

Lance Bauer
Genetic and personality risk factors for addiction and their neurophysiological correlates.

Margaret Briggs-Gowan
Mental health problems in young children, including identifying risk factors and pinpointing underlying genetic, stress-response, and neurocognitive factors involved in these processes.

Alice Burghard
Neurobiology of auditory systems.

Manuel Castro-Alamancos
Synaptic, cellular and network mechanisms involved in sensorimotor information transmission, coding and storage during motivated behaviors.

Stephen J. Crocker
Stem cells; glia; metalloproteinases; cytokines; development; pathology; tissue culture.

Breno Diniz
How age-related changes in biological processes (the Pillars of Biological Aging) affect the development and outcomes of late-life mental and neuropsychiatric disorders and how it translates into the repurpose or development of novel interventions to treat and prevent these disorders across the lifespan.

Julian Ford
Developing and validating psychometric assessments and psychosocial interventions for youth, adults and families who are at risk or have experienced traumatic adversity; clinical epidemiological studies of youth/adult traumatic victimization and healthcare utilization.

Andres D. Grosmark
Utilizing cutting-edge two-photon imaging, electrophysiology, genetic targeting and closed-loop optogenetic manipulations together with advanced behavioral paradigms to dissect the initial formation and subsequent evolution of long-term memories.

Rosaria Guzzo
Identification of key epigenetic mechanisms that modulate the cartilage-forming potential of human iPS cells.

Xiangyou Hu
Investigating the BACE1 biological functions and the roles of BACE1 in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease using both conditional and constitutional BACE1 knockout mice.

George Kuchel
Biology of aging and its contribution to altered mobility, voiding, cognition and host defense with aging. Design and validation of geroscience-guided interventions into aging and common chronic diseases of aging.

Eric S. Levine
Synaptic physiology and plasticity, roles of nerve growth factors and endogenous cannabinoids in hippocampus and cortex.

James Li
Mechanisms underlying normal and abnormal development of the central nervous system; stem cell biology.

Leslie Loew
Morphological determinants of cell physiology; image-based computational models of cellular biology; spatial variations of cell membrane electrophysiology; new optical methods for probing living cells.

Xin-Ming Ma
Synaptogenesis and spine plasticity in hippocampal neurons; estrogen hormones, cocaine, stress and synaptic plasticity.

David Martinelli
Understanding the molecular logic of how synaptic adhesion proteins orchestrate synaptic formation, modification, and function, and ultimately providing an explanation for how these events influence behaviors, in particular the aberrant behaviors associated with neuropsychiatric diseases.

Royce Mohan
Schwann cells in corneal axonal regeneration and fibrosis; retinal Muller glia in age-related macular degeneration. Genetic and pharmacological approaches for discovery of druggable targets in the CNS and PNS; chemical probes for in vivo imaging

Patrick Murphy
Unraveling the complex interplay between recruited immune cells and the endothelial lining of the vasculature in chronic inflammation, with a focus on alternative splicing and changes in the sub-endothelial matrix as critical determinants of that interaction.

Timothy Spellman
Physiological substrates of executive functioning within higher-order association areas of the brain.

David Steffens
Links between late life depression and subsequent cognitive decline and development of dementia.

Feliks (Ephraim) Trakhtenberg
Molecular mechanisms of neuronal development and regeneration in the CNS.

Sebnem Tuncdemir
Understanding how the neural circuits that encode specific features of contexts are organized in adults and to elucidate the key developmental mechanisms by which this network is formed. 

Rajkumar Verma
Cause-effect-relationships of stroke outcome.

Lihong Wang
Bethune Medical University, Ph.D., Yokohama City University School of Medicine.  Neural signatures of depression vulnerability and neural plasticity in patients with late-life depression and mild cognitive decline.

Zhao-Wen Wang
Cellular and molecular mechanisms of neurotransmitter release; potassium and calcium channel function; Synaptic localization of potassium channels.

Yulan Xiong
Mechanisms underlying aging and neurodegenerative diseases, with specific emphasis on Parkinson’s disease (PD). 

Ming Xu
Using novel mouse models, primary human cells, and human tissues to study the role of cellular senescence in aging and obesity, with a goal to devise therapeutic interventions targeting senescent cells to slow down aging process, and alleviate various age-related diseases simultaneously.

Riqiang Yan
How Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients develop the pathologies in their brains; therapeutic treatment for this most common neurodegenerative disease.

Lixia Yue
RP channels and Ca2+ signaling mechanisms; Physiological and pathological functions of TRP channels in heart, brain, and kidney.

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