Training Faculty: Mechanisms of Intercellular Communication

Vytautas Verselis: Professor, Department of Neuroscience. Structure-function studies of gap junction channels; voltage gating, and permeation.

Michael Bennett: Professor, Department of Neuroscience. Chemical and electrical synapses; structure-function studies of connexins and glutamate receptors; physiological roles analyzed by gene knock outs.

Myles Akabas: Professor, Department of Physiology and Biophysics; Professor, Department of Neuroscience; Professor, Department of Medicine. Molecular biophysics of neurotransmitter-gated ion channels. GABA-A receptors, general anesthetics, structure, function and pharmacology.

Thaddeus Bargiello: Professor, Department of Neuroscience. Molecular genetics and biophysics of gap junction channels; structure-function relationships and biological roles.

Feliksas Bukauskas: Professor, Department of Neuroscience. Gap junction channel formation and gating.

Reed Carroll: Associate Professor, Department of Neuroscience. Molecular mechanisms underlying synaptic plasticty.

Pablo Castillo: Professor, Department of Neuroscience. Synaptic transmission, modulation and plasticity; the properties of excitatory and inhibitory synapses in themammalian brain and the mechanisms of synaptic plasticity during developmentand in learning and memory.

Donald Faber: Professor and Chair, Department of Neuroscience. Functional organization and adaptive properties of central synapses; mechanisms of action of neuromodulators; neural correlates of sensorimotor behavior and its plasticity.

Anna Francesconi: Assistant Professor, Department of Neuroscience. Cellular and molecular mechanisms of neurotransmitter receptor trafficking; the role of lipid rafts in synaptic trafficking and signaling.

Jean Hebert: Associate Professor, Department of Neuroscience; Associate Professor, Department of Genetics. Genetic and molecular mechanisms required for neural stem and progenitor cells to generate the forebrain in development, and regenerate it in adulthood.

Kamran Khodakhah: Professor, Department of Neuroscience. Dendritic integration and neuronalcomputation; the role of calcium in regulation of excitability and synapticplasticity.

Scott Nawy: Professor, Department of Opthalmology and Visual Sciences; Professor, Department of Neuroscience. Synaptic transmission, modulation, and development in the retina.

Alberto Pereda: Professor, Department of Neuroscience. Modulation in the central nervous system; synaptic plasticity; properties and plasticity of electrical synapses.

Diana Pettit: Associate Professor, Department of Neuroscience. Dendritic physiology and modulation of synaptic transmission.

Eliana Scemes: Professor, Department of Neuroscience.

David Spray: Professor, Department of Neuroscience; Professor, Department of Medicine. Biophysics of gap-junction channels; regulation of gap-junction gene expression; membrane trafficking of gap-junction proteins; physiology of gap junctions in neurons and cardiovascular systems.

Suzanne Zukin: Professor, Department of Neuroscience. NMDA receptors, AMPA receptors, receptor trafficking, synaptic plasticity, epigenetics, stroke, neuronal death, autism, Fragile X syndrome, Alzheimer's disease