ANIMAL WELL-BEING
AND HUMAN-ANIMAL INTERACTIONS
Ruth C.
Newberry (http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/newberry.asp)
-
I
study factors
affecting the behavior and well-being of animals, with a focus on
identifying environmental enrichment strategies that minimize
aggression, cannibalism and other injurious behaviors.
Jaak Panksepp (http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/depts-vcapp/Panksepp-endowed.asp) I
am the
founder of the now rapidly expanding
scientific specialty called Affective
Neuroscience. My research interests are devoted to understanding
the basic brain mechanisms that allow organisms to have various
affective feelings, especially emotional ones that are important for
understanding psychiatric disorders in both humans and other animals.
This knowledge should help us to understand the comfort zones by which
all animals live their lives, and give us better ideas for all kinds of
emotional distress including those that result in drug addictions. Our
research focuses on the instinctual emotional behaviors of animals,
while accepting the importance of experienced lives in understanding
what brains really do.
BEHAVIORAL
Rebecca Craft
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/craft.asp)
-
My
research goals are to determine whether the rewarding effects of drugs differ
in females vs. males, whether females and males perception of drug effects
differ, whether any of the effects of commonly used psychoactive drugs differ
between the sexes, and the underlying neurobiological mechanisms of such sex
differences.
Dennis G. Dyck
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/dyck.asp)
-
My
laboratory focuses on clinical management of schizophrenia and immunological
responses to the chronic stresses of care-giving.
Patricia Talcott (http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/talcott.asp)
My
current position involves teaching in the veterinary curriculum and providing
diagnostic toxicology service to Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic
Laboratory and the University of Idaho's Analytical Sciences Laboratory.
The veterinary toxicology service currently
receives over 1300 cases per year, totaling more than 4,100 tests. These cases
come from all over the Northwest and include submissions involving all animal
species.
Jay Wright
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/wright.asp)-
My
research program concerns memory dysfunction, such as that seen with
Alzheimers disease. I am developing new drug therapies in an attempt to
reduce memory problems.
CANCER
Patrick Gavin
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/people-vcs/faculty/gavin.asp) -
My
interests are in the area of diagnosis of brain and spinal disorders via
magnetic resonance imaging, treatment of brain tumors with radiation, and
normal brain tissue tolerance to radiation.
CARDIOVASCULAR AND MUSCLE PHYSIOLOGY
Ken Campbell
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/campbell.asp) -
I study the
relation between contraction systems (muscle), the mechanical load against
which contractile systems must work, and the excitation systems (nervous
system and other bioelectric generators such as cardiac pacemakers) that drive
contraction. This triad of physiologic systems (muscle-load-excitation)
co-evolved according to the outcomes of interactions that favored the survival
of the organism. Articulation of aspects of interactions that lead to
favorable functional outcomes (i.e., enhanced mechanical energy exchange
between the organism and its environment) becomes the center piece of a deeper
understanding of the integrated organism and the foundations for a biomimetic
engineering.
Murali Chandra
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/chandra.asp)
-
My research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms responsible
for regulation of the contractile machinery of heart muscle cells and how myofilament
remodeling is linked to pathogenesis of heart diseases.
Wenji Dong
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/dong_w.asp)
-
Research
in my laboratory focuses on the cardiac muscle regulation at the healthy and
diseased states. Specifically, we study the regulatory mechanism of cardiac
thin filament in response to protein phosphorylation and cardiomyopathy
mutations of contractile proteins. We also are interested in developing a
next-generation biosensor to detect multiple cardiac biomarkers for heart
disease diagnosis.
Henk Granzier
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/granzier.asp) -
My research focuses on understanding the role of the giant
protein titin in providing shape and elasticity to cells and it explores the
role of titin and related proteins in modulating cardiac contraction and heart
disease.
Michael B. Laskowski
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/laskowski.asp) -
My lab researches
the development and regeneration, mechanisms of target recognition and synapse
formation with muscle by growing and regenerating motorneurons.
Bryan K. Slinker
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/slinker.asp)
-
I study the regulation of cardiac function, cardiac angiotensins,
and biostatistics.
CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM (CNS)
Stacia B. Moffett
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/moffett.asp) -
Research
in my lab focuses on invertebrate neurobiology, CNS regeneration and
behavioral recovery.
James O. Schenk
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/schenk.asp) -
I study
neurochemistry, in vivo and in vitro measurements of neuro-transmitters
and transmitter uptake mechanisms.
COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY
Maureen Schmitter-Edgecombe
(http://www.wsu.edu/~schmitte/)
My
research focuses on evaluating attention and memory issues in both
neurological normal (i.e., both young and older adults) and clinical
populations (e.g., closed-head injury, Parkinson's disease).
DISEASE
Mark DeSantis
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/desantis.asp)
-
The
cells of the nervous system can develop incorrectly, get sick, or be injured.
Sometimes they die; sometimes they recover or our bodies compensate. I
am seeking to understand what is going on with cells and the body during those
times.
Joe Harding
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/harding.asp)
-
My
research focuses on the development of new treatment options for
neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimers, Parkinsons, and stroke.
Steve Simasko
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/simasko.asp) -
The
goal of the research in my laboratory is
to develop physiological insights, from the cellular and molecular level to
the integrated behavior of the whole animal, into the processes that
influence diseases with significant behavioral components, such as obesity
and addiction.
DRUG ABUSE &
INTERACTIONS
Yan Dong
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/ydong.asp)
-
Our
long-term research interest is to understanding the neural mechanisms
through which the brain perceives, differentiates, and prioritizes the
motivational signals. We use drug addiction as the animal model. Our central
hypothesis is that repeated exposure to strong incentive stimuli, such as
cocaine intake, rewires the microcircuits within the brain reward pathway,
leading to pathological prioritization of drug-related motivation. We employ
multidisciplinary approaches including in vitro and in vivo
electrophysiological recordings, molecular manipulations, biochemical assays
and behavioral tests to examine this hypothesis.
Barbara Sorg
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/sorg.asp) -
I
am examining the effects of stress and cocaine on the brain and behavior.
I also study how certain environmental chemicals effect the brain and
behavior.
Mike Morgan
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/morgan.asp) -
The
goal of my research is to determine the neural mechanisms underlying pain
modulation and morphine tolerance.
Raymond M. Quock
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/quock.asp) -
Our
research program focuses on elucidating pharmacological mechanisms of anxiety
and pain control.
EATING CONTROLS
Robert
and Sue Ritter
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/ritter-r.asp
OR http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/ritter-s.asp) -
Our
research focuses on eating disorders associated with brain function.
Suzanne M.
Appleyard (http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/Appelyard_S.asp)
- The main focus of my lab is to determine how neuronal circuits control
energy balance and whether these pathways are altered during disease states
such as obesity.
ENDOCRINE SYSTEM
Hurbert Schwabl
(http://www.crb.wsu.edu/3FacultyPages/Schwabl.html)
My
research is in environmental physiology with focus on the role of the
endocrine system in physiological and behavioral responses of animals, in
particular of birds, to the environment.
EXERCISE
PHYSIOLOGY
Sally E. Blank
(http://www.spokane.wsu.edu/academic/health_sciences/exercise_science/faculty_SBlankbio.asp)
-
My
research focuses on stress physiology and the role of exercise stress in
mechanisms regulating immunity and skeletal muscle metabolism.
E. Carolyn Johnson
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/johnson_c.asp) -
My research
targets control of angiogenesis, the role of angiogenesis in atherosclerosis
and the effects of different stressors such as exercise and hypoxia on microvascular
growth.
MOTOR CONTROL
David Lin
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/lin.asp)
-
I
study the contribution of muscle and spinal reflex properties for the control
of posture and movement. The research in my laboratory extends from single
muscle fibers to human postural control.
Leslie Sprunger
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/sprunger.asp) -
Normal, coordinated movement requires complex interactions
between body and brain. My lab uses an integrative approach to study neural
control of movement, movement disorders, and the role of genetic mechanisms
known to influence the severity of neurologic disease.
Anita Vasavada
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/vasavada.asp) -
My
research explores the interaction of musculoskeletal biomechanics and neural
control in both normal and diseased states. In particular, I use computer
modeling and motion analysis to study control of head movements and basal
ganglia disorders such as Parkinson's disease.
NEURAL PLASTICITY
Krzysztof Czaja
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/czaja.asp) -
The research interest of our group is to investigate functional, chemical
and structural plasticity involved in cell survival or death within the
nervous system. Our major efforts are devoted to the study of postnatal
adaptive changes of neural circuits to intrinsic or extrinsic inputs. Most
of our work is concentrated on primary sensory neurons using cell biology,
molecular biology and neuroanatomy.
REPRODUCTION
Heiko Jansen
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/jansen.asp) -
Research
in my laboratory centers around understanding how the brain controls
reproduction. Specifically, we study the brains of seasonal breeders
because these species undergo an annual (reversible) cycle of fertility and
infertility. Our goal is to identify the neural processes leading to
these profound physiological changes in an effort to facilitate reproductive
function.
Catherine M. Ulibarri
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/ulibarri.asp)
-
I am studying the molecular, behavioral and neuroanatomical
aspects of sexual differentiation.
SLEEP
Greg Belenky
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/belenky.asp)
-
We
conduct laboratory and field studies of sleep and performance in humans.
Lynn Churchill
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/churchill.asp)
- I
investigate how different regions of the brain play a role in sleep function.
James Krueger
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/krueger/krueger.asp) -
Humans
spend about 27 years of our life asleep. Therefore, sleep and associated
problems are clearly of direct importance to the quality of our life. A
necessary step in determining the function of sleep is to find out how the
brain produces sleep. My laboratory is looking into the biochemical mechanisms
responsible for sleep and sleep function.
David Rector
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/rector.asp) My lab
is focused on mechanisms of high level sensory processing performed by the
brain and in developing novel neurophysiological and imaging techniques for
whole animal recordings.
Hans
P. A. Van Dongen (http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/hans_vandongen.asp)
-
My
research focuses on the neurobehavioral effects of sleep deprivation and the
underlying sleep/wake and circadian regulatory mechanisms, through
laboratory experiments as well as mathematical modeling.
VISION & HEARING
Robert Patterson
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/patterson.asp) -
My
research centers around basic visual mechanisms of depth and motion
perceptions. This research is important to the development of synthetic
vision (virtual reality) displays in human engineering.
Christine Portfors (http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/portfors/portfors_home.html)
In
my laboratory we are studying the neural mechanisms used by bats and mice to
analyze complex sounds such as communication sounds. We use a variety of
neurophysiological, neuroanatomical and behavioral techniques to study the
auditory system of these animals.
Deborah Stenkamp
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/stenkamp.asp)
-
My
lab is researching the cellular and molecular mechanisms of vertebrate retinal
development.
Michael Varnum
(http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/research_vcapp/varnum.asp)
-
I
am investigating the molecular mechanisms underlying the activity of ion
channels that are vital to vision and olfaction. Current experiments are
directed toward understanding the functional basis for identified retinal
diseases that been linked to mutations in the genes encoding these proteins.
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