Faculty Research

Gene Alexander, Ph.D.

Brain function and structure in cognitive aging and neurodegenerative disease

John Allen, Ph.D.

Human psychophysiology: emotion, cognition, memory and amnesia

Study the pathophysiology & interface between traumatic brain injury, pain and migraine; utilize cutting edge approaches including electrical & optophysiology, neural imaging, neural circuit interrogation and respondent and operant behavior.

Jessica Andrews-Hanna, Ph.D.

Neural underpinnings of internally-guided cognition, including how they develop and change across the lifespan and how they become dysfunctional in clinical populations; functional MRI; default mode network

E. Fiona Bailey, Ph.D.

Voluntary and respiratory-related neuromuscular control of upper airway muscles

Christopher Banek, Ph.D.

Peripheral neural control of cardiovascular and renal function in health and disease

Shaowen Bao, Ph.D.

Sound processing in the healthy and diseased brain

Carol Barnes, Ph.D.

Neurobiological correlates of age-related declines in spatial cognition

Thomas Bever, Ph.D.

Interactions of cognition and neurology in humans and animals

Martha Bhattacharya, Ph.D.

The Bhattacharya Lab studies the molecular pathways that promote axon degeneration in the context of neuronal injury and neurodegenerative disease, using both Drosophila and mouse models

James Bibb, Ph.D

We study neuronal signaling mechanisms that integrate fast and slow neurotransmission relevant to numerous neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders using innovative multidisciplinary approaches.

Roberta Brinton, Ph.D.

Systems biology of aging transitions leading to risk of age-related neurodegenerative diseases, sex differences in bioenergetic aging of female and male brain, regenerative therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases

Ross Buchan, Ph.D.

From yeast to neurons - insights into ALS proteostasis

Haijiang Cai, Ph.D.

Neural circuits of animal behaviors, with a focus on understanding how the neural circuits regulate feeding and emotional behaviors, using optogenetics, pharmacogenetics, electrophysiology, molecular, and behavior analysis tools

Joao Carvalho De Souza, Ph.D.

Improving optocapacitance as a technique to photostimulate genetically unmodified neurons, by changing their membrane capacitance, in vivo and in vitro

Rui Chang, Ph.D.

Developing and applying AI methods in precision medicine discovery for neurodegenerative diseases and cancer

Ying-hui Chou, Sc.D.

Developing image-guided transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) approaches to improve cognitive functions and identifying TMS-derived and imaging-based biomarkers for diagnosis and prediction of therapeutic outcomes in individuals

Megan Corty, Ph.D.

How and why glia wrap axons

Stephen Cowen, Ph.D.

Understanding how the activities of ensembles of neurons drive our capacity to decide, remember, and navigate

Thomas Davis, Ph.D

The delivery of neuropharmaceuticals across the Blood Brain Barrier

Anna Dornhaus, Ph.D.

The emergence of complexity and increased efficiency through collective behavior; effect of scaling in complex systems; the role of learning and individual variability for collective success

Kristian Doyle, Ph.D.

The role of the immune system in chronic neurodegeneration after stroke and brain injury

Erika Eggers, Ph.D.

How inhibitory inputs influence neuronal signaling and sensory signal processing in the retina

Arne Ekstrom, Ph.D.

Work focuses on the neural basis of human memory, with a particular interest in spatial navigation

Torsten Falk, Ph.D.

Cellular and rodent models to test novel pharmacological treatments for levodopa-induced dyskinesias, a major side effect of Parkinson’s disease treatment, as well as new neuroprotective gene and drug therapy approaches to Parkinson’s disease

Jean-Marc Fellous, Ph.D.

Computational neuroscience, learning and emotional memory, neuromodulation

Fabian-Xosé Fernandez, Ph.D.

Identifying circadian factors during middle age that increase risk for later-life cognitive impairment; devloping novel, light-based treatments to stem loss of cognition during aging

Ralph Fregosi, Ph.D.

Regulation of Breathing

Andrew Fuglevand, Ph.D.

Sensorimotor neurophysiology

Amelia Gallitano, M.D., Ph.D.

The mechanism by which immediate early genes mediate the effect of environment on behavior, memory, synaptic plasticity, and the risk for mental illness

Katalin Gothard, M.D., Ph.D.

The neural basis of emotion and social behavior

Michael Grandner, Ph.D.

The role of insufficient sleep in the development of cardiometabolic disease and neurocognitive dysfunction; social/behavioral/environmental determinants of sleep; and behavioral interventions for insufficient sleep

Philipp Gutruf, Ph.D.

Wireless and battery free devices that intimately integrate with biological systems by combining innovations in soft materials photonics and electronics

Charles Higgins, Ph.D.

Computational neuroscience, biologically-inspired engineering

Anita Koshy, M.D

Understanding the molecular mechanisms that allow a common intracellular parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, to persist in the mammalian CNS

Richard Lane, M.D., Ph.D.

Functional neuroanatomy of emotion and emotion regulation in normative and clinical contexts

Tally Largent-Milnes, Ph.D.

The opioid and chronic pain epidemics go hand in hand; my lab investigates the intersection between the physiology of chronic pain states, analgesic pharmacology, and overcoming the gatekeeper of CNS pharmacology- the blood brain barrier

Kevin Lin, Ph.D.

Nonlinear dynamics of neurons and networks of neurons, data assimilation & data-driven modeling, computational neuroscience.

Lalitha Madhavan, M.D., Ph.D.

Stem Cell Biology, Aging, and Neurodegeneration

Laurent Martin, Ph.D.

The intersection of neurodegeneration and pain management, aiming to understand how neurodegenerative diseases impact sensory processing; to develop non-pharmacological therapies that slow progression of these conditions while enhancing pain management

Julie Miller, Ph.D.

Neurogenetic mechanisms underlying normal and abnormal vocal communication

Janko Nikolich-Zugich, M.D., Ph.D.

The biology of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) in health, infection and aging

Mary Peterson, Ph.D

Visual perception and cognition, object recognition, figure assignment, attention, language and space, behavioral and neuropsychological studies

Paulo Pires, Ph.D.

The long-term goal of our research is to find new targets for therapies to improve quality of life of patients with chronic diseases that lead to dementia

Robin Polt, Ph.D.

New Methods for Organic Synthesis

Frank Porreca, Ph.D.

Central autonomic regulation; opioids

John Regan, Ph.D.

Molecular studies of the structure and function of G-protein coupled receptors

Linda Restifo, M.D., Ph.D.

Genetics of brain development and neuronal plasticity; genetics of mental retardation; drug discovery for developmental brain disorders

Arthur Riegel, Ph.D.

Synaptic dysfunction in neurological and psychiatric disorders related to addiction, pain and stress

Kathleen Rodgers, Ph.D.

Evaluating the ability of angiotensin peptides and small molecule Mas agonists to mitigate injury and regenerate injured tissues and product development

Patrick Ronaldson, Ph.D.

Targeting transporters for blood-brain barrier protection and for delivery of neuroprotective drugs in cerebral hypoxia/ischemia

Lee Ryan, Ph.D.

Neural basis of memory, age-related changes in memory, and how these changes relate to brain functioning

Rita Sattler, MSc, Ph.D.

Studies of molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration (ALS, FTD, and others) using patient-derived induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells

Todd Schlenke, Ph.D.

The genetic basis of behavioral immunity in fruit flies

Rick Schnellmann, Ph.D.

Identifying and developing drugs to treat stroke, spinal cord injury and Parkinson’s disease

Jacob Schwartz, Ph.D

RNA-binding proteins involved in the pathogenesis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)

Scott Sherman, M.D., Ph.D.

Development of viral vectors designed to modify the expression of voltage-gated channels in brain

Shang Song, Ph.D.

Designing novel multimodal neuromodulation approaches (e.g. biomaterials, stem cells, electrical stimulation) to treat neurological disorders and building organ-on-chip models to understand brain-related diseases

Nicholas Strausfeld, Ph.D.

Visual system neurobiology, learning and memory, brain evolution, nervous system database

John Streicher, Ph.D.

Studies the molecular mechanisms of opiod receptor signal transduction, with a goal of using these mechanisms to create novel drug discovery strategies that reduce the side effects of current opiod drugs

George Sutphin, Ph.D.

The Sutphin Lab uses tools in systems and comparative genetics to understand the molecular basis of aging and neurodegeneration

Jennifer Teske, Ph.D.

Neural and behavioral mechanisms of sleep deprivation-induced obesity

Todd Vanderah, Ph.D.

Understanding the neural-mediated mechanism underlying opioid tolerance and opioid-induced pain

Xinglong Wang, Ph.D.

Causes, treatments, and diagnosis of Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases

Melissa Warden, Ph.D.

Neuromodulation and neural circuits of motivated behavior

Jean Wilson, Ph.D.

Cell biology of epithelial tissues; Regulation of membrane trafficking in polarized and non-polarized cells

Russell Witte, Ph.D.

Novel imaging of the central nervous system; smart contrast agents

Melville Wohlgemuth, Ph.D.

Sensing and action in the natural environment

Fei Yin, Ph.D.

Mitochondrial genotype and phenotype in brain aging and age-associated neurodegenerative diseases

Haining Zhu, Ph.D.

RNA binding proteins and RNA metabolism including protein translation and stress granules under physiological and pathological conditions

Konrad Zinsmaier, Ph.D.

The laboratory studies pathogenic mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases and molecular mechanisms essential for maintaining synaptic function and plasticity