{"id":517,"date":"2015-12-10T15:37:16","date_gmt":"2015-12-10T20:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.grad.uchc.uconn.edu\/?page_id=517"},"modified":"2026-04-09T11:56:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T15:56:53","slug":"faculty","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/graduate-school\/academics\/programs\/ph-d-biomedical-science\/neuroscience\/faculty\/","title":{"rendered":"Neuroscience AoC Faculty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Srdjan Antic<\/a>
\nPrefrontal and somatosensory cortex; pyramidal neurons; synaptic transmission; excitatory neurotransmitters; the role of dendrites in synaptic integration; and dopaminergic modulation of dendritic excitability.<\/p>\n

Byoung-Il Bae<\/a>
\nUnderstanding 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.<\/p>\n

Paola Bargagna-Mohan<\/a>
\nCorneal injury\u2013induced sensory axon remodeling and therapeutic targeting.<\/p>\n

Margaret Briggs-Gowan<\/a>
\nMental health problems in young children, including identifying risk factors and pinpointing underlying genetic, stress-response, and neurocognitive factors involved in these processes.<\/p>\n

Alice Burghard<\/a>
\nNeurobiology of auditory systems.<\/p>\n

Manuel Castro-Alamancos<\/a>
\nSynaptic, cellular and network mechanisms involved in sensorimotor information transmission, coding and storage during motivated behaviors.<\/p>\n

Stephen J. Crocker<\/a>
\nStem cells; glia; metalloproteinases; cytokines; development; pathology; tissue culture.<\/p>\n

Julian Ford<\/a>
\nDeveloping 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.<\/p>\n

Samantha Fortin<\/a>
\n<\/strong>Neural control of ingestive behavior.<\/span><\/p>\n

Andres D. Grosmark<\/a>
\nUtilizing 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rosaria Guzzo<\/a>
\nIdentification of key epigenetic mechanisms that modulate the cartilage-forming potential of human iPS cells.<\/p>\n

Xiangyou Hu<\/a>
\nInvestigating the BACE1 biological functions and the roles of BACE1 in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer\u2019s disease using both conditional and constitutional BACE1 knockout mice.<\/span><\/p>\n

George Kuchel<\/span><\/a>
\nBiology 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eric S. Levine<\/a>
\nSynaptic physiology and plasticity, roles of nerve growth factors and endogenous cannabinoids in hippocampus and cortex.<\/p>\n

James Li<\/a>
\nMechanisms underlying normal and abnormal development of the central nervous system; stem cell biology.<\/p>\n

Leslie Loew<\/a>
\nMorphological determinants of cell physiology; image-based computational models of cellular biology; spatial variations of cell membrane electrophysiology; new optical methods for probing living cells.<\/p>\n

Xin-Ming Ma<\/a>
\nSynaptogenesis and spine plasticity in hippocampal neurons; estrogen hormones, cocaine, stress and synaptic plasticity.<\/p>\n

David Martinelli<\/a>
\nUnderstanding 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.<\/p>\n

Royce Mohan<\/a>
\nSchwann 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<\/p>\n

Patrick Murphy<\/a>
\nUnraveling 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.<\/p>\n

Paul Robson<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>\"JAX_icon\"
\nSingle cell transcriptomics, primate\/human early embryonic development, maternal-fetal medicine, fetal programming, pluripotent cell biology, regulatory networks, tumor heterogeneity, circulating tumor cells.<\/span><\/p>\n

Timothy Spellman<\/a>
\n<\/strong>Physiological substrates of executive functioning within higher-order association areas of the brain.<\/span><\/p>\n

David Steffens<\/a>
\nLinks between late life depression and subsequent cognitive decline and development of dementia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Feliks (Ephraim) Trakhtenberg<\/a>
\nMolecular mechanisms of neuronal development and regeneration in the CNS.<\/p>\n

Sebnem Tuncdemir<\/a>
\nUnderstanding 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Frederick Varn<\/a> \"JAX_icon\"
\nIntegrating genomic and spatial biology approaches to investigate how the tumor microenvironment drives development and treatment resistance in brain tumors.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rajkumar Verma<\/a>
\nCause-effect-relationships of stroke outcome.<\/p>\n

Lihong Wang<\/a>
\nBethune Medical University, Ph.D., Yokohama City University School of Medicine. \u00a0Neural signatures of depression vulnerability and neural plasticity in patients with late-life depression and mild cognitive decline.<\/p>\n

Zhao-Wen Wang<\/a>
\nCellular and molecular mechanisms of neurotransmitter release; potassium and calcium channel function; Synaptic localization of potassium channels.<\/p>\n

Yulan Xiong<\/a>
\nMechanisms underlying aging and neurodegenerative diseases, with specific emphasis on Parkinson\u2019s disease (PD).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Riqiang Yan<\/a>
\nHow Alzheimer\u2019s disease (AD) patients develop the pathologies in their brains; therapeutic treatment for this most common neurodegenerative disease.<\/p>\n

Lixia Yue<\/span><\/a>
\nRP channels and Ca2+ signaling mechanisms; Physiological and pathological functions of TRP channels in heart, brain, and kidney.<\/p>\n

rev. 4\/26<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"parent":509,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 04:34:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/graduate-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/517"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/graduate-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/graduate-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/graduate-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/graduate-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517"}],"version-history":[{"count":54,"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/graduate-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5574,"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/graduate-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/517\/revisions\/5574"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/graduate-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/graduate-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}