Integrative Neuroscience
Research includes:
- Addiction
- Alzheimer's Disease
- Amyloid Plaques
- Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
- Anxiety Disorders
- Auditory Neuroscience
- Autism and Fragile X Disease
- Axonal Growth & Transport
- Behavioral Neuroscience
- Blood-Brain Barrier Function
- Central Nervous System
- Chronic Pain
- Cognition, Memory and Learning
- Computational Cognitive Neuroscience
- Dopamine
- Epigentics
- Epilepsy
- Feeding Behavior
- Genetic Engineering
- Hearing and Vision Loss
- Ingestive Behavior
- Intracellular Signaling
- Ion Channel Physiology
- Lewy Bodies
- Mental Illness
- Metabolism and Food Intake
- Mitochondria
- Molecular Neuropharmacology
- Molecular Psychiatry
- Neural Development
- Neural Networks
- Neuroanatomy
- Neurodegeneration
- Neurofibrillary Tangles
- Neurofilament
- Neuron-glia Interactions
- Neurons
- Neuropsychopharmacology
- Oxidative Stress
- Parkinson's Disease
- Peripherin
- Pharmacology
- Protein Aggregation
- Receptor Signaling
- Regulatory Behavior
- Sensory System Neurobiology (emphasis on the auditory and vestibular systems)
- Substance Use Disorder
- Substantia Nigra
- Superoxide Dismutase
- Synuclein
- Tourette's Syndrom
- Traumatic Injury
- Tyrosine Hydroxylase
- Vision and Hearing
Training Group Mission:
Neuroscience is a truly integrative discipline as evidenced by the fact that faculty in this program are drawn from approximately 25 departments representing 6 colleges at Purdue University. Both the breadth and depth of the research programs among the Purdue faculty span the nervous systems of diverse species, e.g. fruit flies, zebra fish, mice, rats, and humans. Further, the research approach among these systems spans the molecular, cellular, physiological, and behavioral levels of analysis. Students enter the program from diverse undergraduate majors, with equally diverse research interests, and consequently receive training across the levels of analysis required to effectively understand the nervous system and its function. One of the special aspects of the Neuroscience Program is that the participating faculty are drawn from departments and schools within Purdue University not typically associated with training in the life sciences. This inherent diversity in the problem areas and technical approaches taken will offer students from other training programs within PULSe this broad perspective in a way that is relevant to their own disciplines and research.
Faculty Membership
Protein trafficking and membrane transport in relation to the processes of cell polarity establishment and carcinogenic transformation
We are synthetic organic and medicinal chemists with three predominant interests: (1) Exploring physicochemical and biophysical perturbations imparted by fluorinated functional groups and applying these groups towards drug design; (2) Providing medicinal chemistry support for pharmacological experts, particularly towards treating pain, mood and anxiety disorders, aging, and inflammation; (3) Developing innovative synthetic organic reactions for accessing therapeutically relevant drug-like compounds.
Gene x Environment Interactions in Neurological Disease; Metal Neurotoxicity (manganese, methylmercury, copper); Huntington’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s Disease, Neurodevelopmental disorders
The Chan Lab believes that understanding the early response to injury is critical to diagnosis, assessment, and intervention in life-altering diseases, including post-traumatic osteoarthritis and traumatic brain injury. True to our biomedical engineering roots, we adopt a multi-disciplinary approach - using biomechanics, biomedical imaging, and matrix biology - to quantify the complex tissue responses to injury.
Chemical Immunology: Cell specific chemical perturbation of immune microenvironments in cancer, neurological and immunological disorders
Jessica Huber, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is a Professor in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at Purdue University. The broad aim of her NIH funded research
program is to understand the multiple factors that influence speech production and cognitive change in older adults with and without Parkinson’s disease (PD) and
to translate findings to clinical treatment. Dr. Huber is the inventor of a small wearable device, the SpeechVive device, to treat communication impairments in
people with PD.
Neuropharmacology, cell signaling, macromolecular machines, ion channels, kinases and calcium signaling.
Synaptic and dendritic integration in vitro and in vivo, sensory integration, two-photon imaging, optogenetics, sub-cellular patch-clamp recordings, nanotechology, bioelectronics
We use translationally relevant preclinical animal models of substance use disorder to dissect how the brain responds to acute and chronic drug use. We pair behavioral models with whole-brain imaging of protein signaling and computationally based neural network analysis. These approaches can help us to better understand addiction and develop better treatment options.
The cellular basis of visual processing in zebrafish
Nervous system development and regeneration following injury, neuronal growth cone motility and guidance, cytoskeletal dynamics, signal transduction, ROS signaling, neuronal mechanics, advanced live cell imaging in vitro and in vivo
Aging photoreceptors in the eye show characteristic changes in gene expression. Our lab is interested in understanding the mechanisms that drive these changes in gene expression. These studies provide a model for understanding how aging contributes to ocular diseases such as age-related macular degeneration. Our work is funded by the National Eye Institute of the NIH. We are actively seeking new graduate students, so please contact us if you are interested in joining our group.
Specialization: pharmacogenomics, ion channels, electrophysiology, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), neurological diseases (e.g., chronic pain, epilepsy, and autism)
