Neuroscience Program Faculty
Program Chair

Associate Professor
Faculty
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Epigenetics, neurological disorders, genome engineering, single-cell genomics

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Engineering adeno-associated viral (AAV) vectors; Developing viral-mediated gene therapies for pediatric neurological disorders; developing gene therapies for Alzheimer’s and neurogenerative diseases; selective targeting of AAV vectors to the central and peripheral nervous systems; facilitating the translation of gene therapies to use in clinical trials

Professor
Research Interests: Calcium channels and calcium signaling in the nervous system; deranged calcium signaling and neurodegeneration in Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s disease

Professor
Research Interests: Biomedical engineering, Brain and spinal cord monitoring, Cerebral metabolism and hemodynamics, Diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS), Diffuse optical spectroscopy (DOS), Intraoperative neuromonitoring, Medical device development, Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), Non-invasive monitoring, Spinal cord hemodynamics

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Autism spectrum disorders, genetics of neurodevelopmental disorders, ubiquitin proteasome pathway

Professor
Research Interests: Somatosensation, pain and touch pathways, mouse genetics, in vitro and in vivo physiology, optogenetics

Professor
Research Interests: Motor function, dystonia, Parkinson’s disease, neural circuits, neurodegeneration

Professor
Research Interests: Mechanisms of amyloid propagation in neurodegenerative diseases, especially tauopathies (e.g. Alzheimer’s disease), synucleinopathies (e.g. Parkinson’s disease), and polyglutamine diseases (e.g. Huntington’s disease); linkage between amyloid structure and biological impact

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Aging and stress response signaling in traumatic brain injury and neurodegeneration

Professor
Research Interests: Functional neuroanatomy of the mammalian hypothalamus

Professor
Research Interests: Prevention and early detection of neurological injury associated with surgery

Professor
Research Interests: Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, autism

Professor
Research Interests: Molecular mechanisms of circadian rhythms and how they control metabolism

Professor
Research Interests: Circuit dysfunction in psychiatric disorders; role of adenosine in function of sleep

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Dissection of neural mechanisms that support integration of sensory information, memory, and internal state to guide behavior using a multidisciplinary approach that encompasses molecular genetics, neural recording, optogenetics, behavioral experiments, and computational modeling.

Professor
Research Interests: Molecular biology of axon guidance

Professor
Research Interests: Cell migration, survival, stress response, cancer

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Ion channel structure and function; membrane protein structural biology; electrophysiology

Professor
Research Interests: Function and regulation of membrane transporters; electrophysiology; biophysics of ion pumps and channels

Professor
Research Interests: Mechanisms of synapse development, plasticity and circuit function, and alterations of these processes in mouse models of mental retardation and autism

Professor
Research Interests: Molecular control of neuronal diversity and balancing progenitor cell maintenance with neuronal differentiation in the vertebrate central nervous system implications for tumor progression in neural and neuroendocrine cancers

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Neural circuit genetics, neural representation and memory engrams for learning and memory in entorhinal-hippocampal circuits of rodent brain under normal and psychotic conditions by applying in vivo calcium imaging, in vivo electrophysiology, viral-tracing and circuit manipulation

Professor
Research Interests: Genetic dissection of endocytic trafficking in Drosophila

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Connectivity and development of neuronal circuits generating somatosensation; molecular and functional diversity of spinal cord interneurons

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Memory encoding and retrieval; Restoring memory function after brain injury

Professor
Research Interests: Developmental neurobiology

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Cellular and functional diversity in the hypothalamus; 5-HT circuits underlying energy and glucose homeostasis; Fetal programming of obesity and diabetes

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Chromatin dynamics and epigenetic regulation of activity-dependent gene expression; the role of genomic instability in neurological disorders and cancer

Professor
Research Interests: Understanding the molecular basis of glycogen malformation in the fatal Lafora epilepsy and devising gene and small-molecule based therapies for this and other childhood neurogenetic disorders

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Friedreich’s ataxia, chromatin and transcription regulation, repeat sequence instability, gene editing, mitochondrial dysfunction, induced pluripotent stem cell models of neurodegeneration, cerebellar function and degeneration

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Friedreich’s ataxia, chromatin and transcription regulation, repeat sequence instability, gene editing, mitochondrial dysfunction, induced pluripotent stem cell models of neurodegeneration, cerebellar function and degeneration

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Regulatory mechanisms impacting structure, function and location of glycogen; Molecular consequences of glycogen storage diseases; Development of treatment strategies on molecular basis of the disease pathogenesis; Engineering proteins for improved Gene Therapy

Professor
Research Interests: Animal and cellular models of neurogenetic disorders; synaptic transmission in experimental epilepsies; disorders of brain energy metabolism; developmental neurobiology; genotype:phenotype correlations in novel childhood encephalopathies; clinical pediatric neurology

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Consolidation and recall of memory via large-scale, high-density in vivo recordings of neural activity during free behavior in rodents, focusing on spatial navigation as a specific example of more general memory formation and use

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Neural Circuits for Basic Biological Motivations, Pain, Pain Relief, Cell-type Targeted Gene Therapies

Professor
Research Interests: Analyses of intracranial human neurophsyiology to investigate basic human neuroscientific principles of motor control, the pathophysiology of disease, and to develop novel stimulation-based therapeutics for human neuropsychiatric disease, including depression, OCD, and consciousness.

Professor
Research Interests: Biophysical studies of the mechanisms of neurotransmitter release and intracellular membrane fusion

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Cellular and circuit mechanisms for vocal imitation, learning from vocal models, and using auditory feedback to learn from vocal practice

Professor
Research Interests: Alzheimer’s disease and genetic neurological disease

Professor
Research Interests: Neurobiology of motivational systems and drug addiction

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Reward circuit function in animal models of depression and addiction

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Cerebellar ataxia, SCA, ion channels, neurodegeneration, selective neuronal vulnerability, potassium channels, Purkinje neurons

Professor
Research Interests: Molecular biology of sensory transduction in Drosophila

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Neuron-glia interaction, oligodendrocyte, myelination, neurological disorders

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Mechanistic studies of volume sensors and mechanosensors, ion channel structure-function and related channelopathies

Professor
Research Interests: Molecular and genetic analysis of the mammalian circadian clock system

Professor
Research Interests: Schizophrenia; postmortem brain; human brain imaging; human translational neuroscience

Professor
Research Interests: Axon growth and guidance; neuronal connectivity; axon regeneration; actin cytoskeleton; spinal cord injury and degeneration

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the formation of neuronal circuits responsible for cognition and behavior

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Elucidating the molecular, synaptic, and circuit mechanisms underlying memory persistence

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Mitochondrial dysfunction, neurodegeneration and PARP-1-dependent cell death (PARthanatos) in ischemic and traumatic brain injury

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Movement Disorders, Dystonia, Motor control, Dopamine, Striatum, Human development, MRI, Diffusion imaging, Deep brain stimulation

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Inherited retinal degenerations, stem cell biology, gene editing, gene therapy, mouse models of ocular disease, metabolism and metabolic reprogramming, photoreceptor cells, genetic mechanisms of disease

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Understanding at a cellular level the neural of control energy balance as well as glucose metabolism, and elucidating how these events may participate in human disease

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Chromatin regulation of mammalian neural development; function of chromatin remodeling complexes in key signaling pathways that regulate neural stem cell self-renewal, differentiation, and post-mitotic neuronal development

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Mechanistic understanding of fundamental cognitive processes including memory and brain executive controls whose dysfunction is implicated in multiple neuropsychiatry disorders

Professor
Research Interests: Molecular and cellular mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease and neurodegenerative disorders

Professor
Research Interests: Transcriptional regulation of neural stem cells and their role in regeneration and brain tumors

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Computational Neuroscience

Professor
Research Interests: Obesity, diabetes, gut-brain axis, islet, hypoglycemia, exercise, ghrelin, cachexia, insulin

Associate Members
These faculty members do not accept graduate students. They participate in teaching, co-mentoring, exam and dissertation committees, and all other program responsibilities.
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Chronic pain-induced behavioral and molecular adaptations; neurodevelopmental disorders; stress-induced analgesia; fear/pain circuits; evolution of pain suppression

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Pathology; comparative histopathology; neuropathology; developmental biology; ophthalmic pathology

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Stem cells, intestine, developmental biology, gastrointestinal physiology, gastrointestinal cancer

Professor
Research Interests: Electrophysiology, neuronal circuits in neocortex, and neuroscience

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Neuroimaging, MRI, dynamic brain connectivity, dopamine, astrocytes, reward and learning, neurovascular coupling

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Neuro-immune interactions, intestinal neural circuits, host-microbial interactions, gut-brain axis and circadian clock

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Locally produced estradiol has been demonstrated to be important for the regulation of synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus. However, very little is known about the factors that regulate the expression of aromatase, the enzyme that converts testosterone into estradiol, in the brain. Our lab uses cell culture techniques and molecular approaches to learn more about the regulation of aromatase expression in the hippocampus of rats and mice.

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: 3D reconstruction; Connectomics, Digital Pathology, Histology, Image Analysis, Neuroscience, Serial Two-Photon Tomography, Stroke, Volumetric Imaging

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: High-density large-scale neural recordings in psychosis model mice; translational human recordings/data analysis in psychotic patients

Professor
Research Interests: Circadian Physiology; Feeding and Light Entrainment of the Circadian System; Live Cell/Tissue Real-Time Imaging; Mouse Models for Human Disorders Caused by Disruption/Disorganization/Misalignment of the Circadian System; Neural Circuit Controlling Feeding and Locomotor Activity Rhythms; Pacemaker Coupling
