Professor
E-Mail: geni@wsu.edu
Phone: (509) 335-7517
The work in our laboratory focuses on the development of micro
electro-analytical techniques for application to problems in
neurobiology, neuropharmacology, and biological psychiatry. The work
involves the construction and characterization of chemical micro-sensors
for use in monitoring the biogenic amine neurotransmitters, as well as
neurobiologically important inorganic ions. Our work is rather diverse
in that we conduct basic electrochemical studies with these small
sensors, as well as explore their usefulness for neuro-pharmacological
and neurophysiological studies in vivo.
Problems of current interest include miniaturization of chemical
sensors to dimensions of less than one micrometer, the development of
electrochemical/neurobiological metabolic models for interpreting
chemical measurements in vivo, the correlation of in vivo chemical
signals with measures of brain cell electrical activity, chemical
measurements of subsecond components of neurotransmitter release, the
determination of the spatial and temporal constraints of extracellular
neurotransmitter influences at the level of the nerve cell, and the
chemistry and mechanism of action of antipsychotic drugs.
Biographical Information
James O. Schenk, Professor of Chemistry, Pharmacy, Biochemistry and
Biophysics, completed his undergraduate work at Wofford College in
Spartanburg, South Carolina, studied clinical chemistry at Georgia State
University, and received his Ph.D. in analytical chemistry and
neuroscience at the University of Kansas. He subsequently spent one year
as a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral research training fellow
and two years as a National Institute of Mental Health postdoctoral
research fellow in the Neuropsychopharmacology Research Unit at Yale
University School of Medicine. He remained at Yale for an additional
year as a postdoctoral associate before joining the Washington State
University faculty in the summer of 1986.
Selected Publications
Batchelor M. and
Schenk J. O. (1998) Protein kinase A may kinetically
upregulate the striatal transporter for dopamine. J. Neuroscience 18,
10304-10309.
Wayment H. K., Deutsch, H., Schweri M. M., and
Schenk J. O. (1999)
Effects of methylphenidate analogs on phenethylamine substrates for the
striatal dopamine transporter: potential as amphetamine antagonists? J.
Neurochemistry 72, 1266-1274.
Earles C. and
Schenk J. O. (1999) Multisubstrate mechanism for the
inward transport of dopamine by the human dopamine transporter expressed
in HEK cells and its inhibition by cocaine. Synapse 33, 230-238.
