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Welcome to the Department of Neural and Behavioral Sciences at The
Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine! At its formation on July
1, 2003, the department had 27 full time faculty members. Funded
investigators in the department occupy more than 19,000 square feet of
space, including 3,000 square feet of shared department space. These
individuals have a broad range of scientific interests and work at the
behavioral, systems, cellular, and molecular levels. Their research is aimed
at understanding the basic properties of the nervous system as well as
delineating the role of the nervous system in the maintenance of health and
in the pathophysiology of various diseases such as, Hypertension, Drug
Addiction, Autism, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Maple Syrup Urine Disease,
Multiple Sclerosis, Restless Legs Syndrome, Diabetic Retinopathy, and
Stroke. The following briefly summarizes the problems under study by
department faculty, and the current methods in use:
Behavioral and Systems Neuroscience
Focal areas of research include programs to understand the physiological
substrates of behaviors, and the involvement of neural mechanisms in
visceral homeostasis.
- Mechanisms of reinforcement
The gustatory system as a model of forebrain assessment of the
hedonic value in afferent neural activity; analyses of centrifugal
control of gustatory processing; dopaminergic regulation of feeding; and
the interaction between homeostatic factors and gustatory sensitivity
and coding.
Rewarding effects of drugs: the properties of and differences between
natural and pharmacological rewards; the effects of anticipatory
contrast effects on reward magnitude.
- Sensory processing, conditioning and learning
Cross-correlational analysis of corticothalamic and corticostriatal
interactions and the role of neostriatal neurons as coincidence
detectors.
The encoding of temporal information, during classical fear
conditioning, by individual neurons in the hippocampus and amygdala.
Mathematical and neurophysiological analysis of the role of medullary
neuronal plasticity in calibration of cardiovascular reflexes.
Methods employed in these studies include behavioral assessment,
electrophysiological techniques, neuroanatomical and neurochemical
techniques, and mathematical modeling.
Cell and Molecular Neuroscience
Focal areas of research include programs to understand neural cell
growth, development and responsiveness to in vivo and in vitro stimuli.
- Cell cycle, cellular differentiation and survival
The role of trophic factors, such as insulin-like growth factors (IGFs)
and a novel opioid growth factor in stem, glial and oligodendrocyte
progenitor cell differentiation, cell cycle regulation and survival
following in vivo and in vitro injury.
- Nutrient supply and demand
Mechanisms regulating the uptake of iron, glucose and other nutrients
across the blood-brain barrier into the cells of the CNS and their
modulation in pathological situations.
- CNS and retinal response to injury
Cellular responses to injury, gliosis, neuronal apoptosis, microglial/macrophage-mediated
inflammation.
Methods employed in these studies include, transgenic mice, genomics and
proteomics, confocal and electron microscopy, cell sorting, MRI and other
image analysis techniques, and clinical and animal immunology and pathology. |
