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Spatial cognition and navigation are evolutionarily critical for a number of tasks that are necessary for survival, including the locating of food, water, and mates. Research in the spatial cognition mechanisms in the human brain has enabled a greater understanding of disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, in which one of the most common symptoms is spatial disorientation. Rat models have enabled a much more fine-grained understanding of these spatial cognition processes through the recording of single neurons in the brains of freely moving animals.
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Understanding how people remember and why they forget is a perennial research topic in psychology. A classic finding is that recalling information from memory is known to increase the probability of being able to retrieve that information again later, and strengthens long-term memory. This benefit has been shown to persist for months after the initial recall attempt. This phenomena is known as the testing effect. More recently, there have been attempts to apply this research finding in educational contexts.
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Acute liver failure is a health concern worldwide. Stemming from a range of causes, such as viral, drug-induced, alcoholic, or autoimmune, the rate of progression is highly variable, and the environmental factors dictating the outcome remain poorly identified. Through working with an animal model of acute liver failure, our laboratory has found that gut microbiota is a critical modulator of liver injury.
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Amino acids, in the form of proteins, comprise the second-largest component of human muscles, cells, and other tissues. They also perform critical roles in neurotransmission and biosynthesis. Using a molecular imprinting technique, the goal of this project is to separate mixtures of amino acids and proteins present in certain brain tumors.
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