Interim Chair and 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 F2a 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 F2a 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.
PubMed Publications (Note: PubMed Search may produce additional
"Simasko" authors.)
