Labs

PI: Karen O’Malley, PhD

The O'Malley Lab is interested in the molecular and cellular bases of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. In particular, the lab is interested in signal transduction pathways mediated by metabotropic glutamate receptors such as mGluR5. These receptors are widely expressed throughout the CNS and play important roles modulating neuronal excitability during brain and synapse development and in learning and memory.

PI: Camillo Padoa-Schioppa, PhD

Research in the Padoa-Schioppa Lab focuses on the neurobiological mechanisms of economic choice (a.k.a. neuroeconomics). The lab combines behavioral, neurophysiological and computational techniques to understand how the brain makes decisions.

PI: Thomas Papouin, PhD

Since its inception, neuroscience has focused on neurons as the single most relevant cellular component of the nervous system for understanding its inner workings. Yet, parts of the mammalian brain are only comprised of 10-20% of neurons. The Papouin lab explores the role played by the remaining 80-90% of “non-neuronal” cells, called glial cells, in brain function. The lab is interested in understanding the role of a glial subtype, astrocytes, in brain function from the perspective of brain states.

PI: Linda Richards AO, FAA, FAHMS, PhD, department chair

The Richards Lab focuses on the development, plasticity and function of long-range connections of the cerebral cortex. The corpus callosum is the largest fibre tract in the brain of placental mammals and connects neurons in each cortical hemisphere. The lab investigates how cellular and molecular/genetic mechanisms regulate brain wiring during development and how brain wiring is altered in congenital corpus callosum dysgenesis (CCD).

PI: Terry Ritzman, PhD

The Ritzman Lab is interested in the comparative anatomy of the skull in primates as it relates to human evolution. The lab employs the comparative method and direct studies of fossil hominins to make inferences regarding the evolutionary processes that operated during the course of human evolution, as well as the patterns, documented by the fossil record, that were produced by these processes.

PI: Lawrence Salkoff, PhD

The Salkoff Lab studies potassium channels which are key elements which control and shape electrical activity in the brain, heart, and other excitable tissues. These channels are major determinants of behavior and higher brain function.

PI: Paul Shaw, PhD

The Shaw Lab uses the genetic model organism Drosophila melanogaster to elucidate the molecular mechanisms linking sleep to neuronal plasticity. The lab has demonstrated that we can fully restore cognitive functioning to a diverse set of classic memory mutants simply by enhancing their sleep. In these experiments, sleep was able to reverse cognitive deficits without restoring the causal molecular lesion or structural defect. In addition sleep reversed cognitive deficits in two separate models of Alzheimer’s disease.

PI: Lawrence Snyder, MD, PhD

The Snyder Lab studies small circuits underlying cognition in the non-human primate model. Currently, the lab has projects involving spatial representation, memory and movement; eye-hand and bimanual coordination; and correlation-based functional connectivity.

PI: Paul Taghert, PhD

The Taghert Lab seeks to understand the organization, regulation and outputs of circadian neural circuits in the Drosophila brain. The lab takes advantage of the remarkable molecular genetic methods that are available with this model system.

PI: Gaia Tavoni, PhD

The Tavoni laboratory develops theories and models to understand how information is represented and processed in neuronal networks, and how brain computations adapt to changing environments and conditions. Areas of focus in the lab include coarse-grained and biophysical models of perceptual learning, statistical physics approaches to memory consolidation and retrieval, Bayesian and complexity theories of high-level cognition, and data-driven models of decision circuits.