School of Medicine
Showing 1-10 of 15 Results
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Laura Seeholzer
Assistant Professor of Neurobiology
BioMy laboratory studies how we detect, perceive, and respond to sensations from within our own bodies. We focus on understanding how the airways sense potentially harmful substances and trigger protective reflexes like coughing and sneezing. Using techniques ranging from molecular and biophysical studies of single cells to behavioral studies, we investigate how specialized epithelial cells lining the airways detect different types of stimuli and communicate this information to the nervous system. By studying epithelial cells from animal models and humans, we aim to understand how their dysfunction contributes to conditions like chronic cough and aspiration. We also examine how the brain processes these internal signals to create the conscious "urge" to cough or sneeze, and how we learn to suppress these reflexes in appropriate social contexts. This research advances our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms linking bodily sensations to conscious awareness, behavioral control, and disease.
I did my PhD at Rockefeller University with Dr. Vanessa Ruta and post-doctoral studies at UCSF with Dr. David Julius. -
Nirao Shah
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Major Laboratories and Clinical Translational Neurosciences Incubator), of Neurobiology and, by courtesy, of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWe study how our brains generate social interactions that differ between the sexes. Such gender differences in behavior are regulated by sex hormones, experience, and social cues. Accordingly, we are characterizing how these internal and external factors control gene expression and neuronal physiology in the two sexes to generate behavior. We are also interested in understanding how such sex differences in the healthy brain translate to sex differences in many neuro-psychiatric illnesses.
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Carla Shatz
Sapp Family Provostial Professor and Professor of Biology and of Neurobiology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe goal of research in the Shatz Laboratory is to discover how brain circuits are tuned up by experience during critical periods of development both before and after birth by elucidating cellular and molecular mechanisms that transform early fetal and neonatal brain circuits into mature connections. To discover mechanistic underpinnings of circuit tuning, the lab has conducted functional screens for genes regulated by neural activity and studied their function for vision, learning and memory.
