Professor

E-Mail: simasko@vetmed.wsu.edu

Phone: (509) 335-6497

Some of the most significant medical problems that affect modern society, such as obesity, drug addiction (including alcohol and nicotine), and depression, are diseases in which there are significant behavioral components. Because of the behavioral nature of these afflictions, neuroscience has important contributions to make in the solutions to these conditions.

Developing effective therapeutic strategies requires a thorough understanding of the mechanisms that regulate, and in the case of disease dysregulate, the underlying physiological processes that

influence these behaviors. The goals of the research in my laboratory are to develop these physiological insights, from the cellular and molecular level to the integrated behavior of the whole animal. We have two projects that are the current focus of the laboratory. The first project addresses regulation of food intake, specifically the mechanisms by which nutrients and hormones activate afferent gastrointestinal neurons that mediate meal termination. The second project examines the relationship between alcohol consumption and sleep disturbances. Our primary experimental model is the rat. In these studies we perform whole animal experiments involving behavioral end-points such as food intake, alcohol consumption, and EEG recordings of sleep, anatomical investigations utilizing immunohistochemistry and/or in situ hybridization, biochemical changes are followed by use of RIA, ELISA, or rt-PCR techniques, and cellular studies on primary cultures of important target tissues are performed by patch-clamp electrophysiology and single-cell calcium measurements.

Selected Publications

Braileanu, G.T., S.M. Simasko, M. Uzumcu, and M.A. Mirando (1999) Intracellular free calcium in response to oxytocin in pig endometrial cells. Molec. Cell. Endocrinol. 155: 77-83.

Handa, R.K., J.W. Harding, and S.M. Simasko (1999) Characterization and function of the bovine kidney epithelial angiotensin receptor type 4 using angiotensin IV and divalinal angiotensin IV as receptor ligands. J. Pharmacol. Exp. Ther. 291: 1-7.

Zimber, M.P. and S.M. Simasko (2000) Recruitment of calcium from intracellular stores does not occur during the expression of large spontaneous calcium oscillations in GH₃ cells and lactotrophic cells in primary culture. Neuroendocrinology 72: 242-251.

Braileanu, G.T., S.M. Simasko, J. Hu, A. Assiri, and M.A. Mirando (2001) Effects of arginine- and lysine-vasopressin on phospholipase C activity, intracellular calcium concentration and prostaglandin F_2a secretion in pig endometrial cells. Reproduction 121:605-612.

Braileanu, G.T., S.M. Simasko, R.C. Speth, D. Daubert, J. Hu, and M.A. Mirando (2002) Angiotensin II increases intracellular calcium concentrations in pig endometrial stromal cells through type 1 angiotensin receptors, but does not stimulate phospholipase C activity or prostaglandin F_2a secretion. Reprod. Fertil. Dev. 14: 1-7.

Kubota, T., A. De, R.A. Brown, S.M. Simasko, and J.M. Krueger (2002) Diurnal effects of acute and chronic administration of ethanol on sleep in rats. Alcoholism: Clin. Exp. Res. 26: 1153-1161.

De, A., L. Churchill, F. Obal Jr., S.M. Simasko, and J.M. Krueger (2002) GHRH and IL1b increase cytoplasmic Ca²⁺ levels in cultured hypothalamic GABAergic neurons. Brain Res. 949: 209-212.

Simasko, S.M., J. Wiens, A. Karpiel, M. Covasa, and R.C. Ritter (2002) Cholecystokinin increases cytosolic calcium in cultured vagal afferent neurons. Am. J. Physiol. Regul., Integr., Comp. Physiol. 283: R1303 – R1313.

Simasko S.M., and R.C. Ritter (2003) Cholecystokinin activates both A- and C-type vagal afferent neurons. Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol. 285(6):G1204-13.

De A., J.M. Krueger, S.M. Simasko (2003) Tumor necrosis factor alpha increases cytosolic calcium responses to AMPA and KCl in primary cultures of rat hippocampal neurons. Brain Res. 981(1-2):133-42.
 

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