Dept. of Neurobiology Research Programs

Research Programs

The department has substantial programmatic strengths in neural development, circuit and systems function, cellular communication through receptors, channels and synapses and neurological and psychiatric disease. The faculty in the department actively integrate research efforts with other research programs in the School of the Medicine (Psychiatry, Pharmacology, Neurology) and in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (Mathematics, Neuroscience). Research programs in the department focus on addressing questions central to understanding the biological basis of brain function and the genetic and epigenetic influences that result in neurologic and psychiatric disease.

Development: The department has major strengths in the study of cerebral cortex, basal forebrain and spinal cord development. Research designs emphasize experimental manipulations that perturb genetic and environmental signals controlling cell fate choices, cell migration, axon guidance and synapse formation. Molecular, cellular, electrophysiological and neuroanatomical methods are employed as strategies for experimental analysis, including: gene cloning, targeted knockouts and knock-ins, neurotrophin, growth factor and nuclear receptor signaling and regulation, virus-mediated gene transfer, neuronal coupling, tissue culture and transplantation.

Faculty: Willi Halfter, Karl Kandler, Richard Koerber, Carl Lagenaur, Cynthia Lance-Jones, Laura Lillien, A. Paula Monaghan-Nichols, Joseph Yip

Circuit Function: Laboratories focus on mechanisms of information processing in thalamocortical, cortico-cortical, basal ganglia, cerebellar and brainstem circuits involved in sensory and motor processing. A combination of neuroanatomical, electrophysiological, calcium imaging and computational methods are used to understand converging and diverging networks. This group is complemented by faculty in the Departments of Mathematics and Otolaryngology.

Faculty: Guo-qiang Bi, Richard Dum, Donna Hoffman, Allen Humphrey, Richard Koerber, Karl Kandler, Nathalie Picard, Daniel Simons, Peter Strick, Andrew Schwartz
Secondaries: Carey Balaban, Robert Schor

Cellular Communication and Disease: This group investigates receptors that mediate excitotoxic responses (NMDA type), synaptic efficacy, function and neurotransmitter receptor assembly (acetylcholine) and the underlying molecular basis of psychiatric and neurological disease. Problems of cellular homeostasis and communication are assessed by using modern molecular biology to study protein structure and subunit assembly, altered gene expression in diseases (gene microarrays) patch physiology, cell transfections and calcium imaging. This group is complemented by faculty in the Departments of Pathology, Pharmacology, Psychiatry and Neurology who investigate related issues of cell signaling, protein interaction and diseases of the nervous system.

Faculty: Elias Aizenman, Guo-qiang Bi, John Horn, Karl Kandler, A. Paula Monaghan-Nichols
Secondaries: Robert Bowser, Yong Jian Liu