CBBRe Research Symposium 2014

Bita Moghaddam, Ph.D.

Professor Neuroscience and Psychiatry

University of Pittsburgh

Talk Title: "Neuronal processing differences in adolescents and adults during motivated  behavior"

Bita Moghaddam, PhD is Professor of Neuroscience at University of Pittsburgh. She has authored over 100 scientific papers in leading journals and is an active educator and mentor. Her research focuses on neuronal mechanisms that maintain cognitive and emotional functions relevant to psychiatric illness.

Website: http://moghaddamlab.org/

Marina Picciotto, Ph.D.

Charles B.G. Murphy Professor in Psychiatry

Deputy Chair for Basic Science

Professor of Neurobiology and Pharmacology

Yale University School of Medicine

Talk Title: "Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors: distinct roles in circuits mediating feeding behavior and behaviors related to depression"

 Murphy Professor in Psychiatry, Deputy Chair for Basic Science and Professor of Neurobiology and Pharmacology at Yale University. Dr. Picciotto is a member of NIDA’s Scientific Council, Treasurer Elect of SFN and was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences in 2012. Dr. Picciotto received her B.S. from Stanford and her Ph.D. from The Rockefeller University. She conducted postdoctoral work at the Pasteur Institute before joining the faculty at Yale University. Dr. Picciotto’s laboratory studies the role of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in mouse models, including research related to addiction, depression, learning and appetite.

Website: http://medicine.yale.edu/intranet/facultybydept/marina_picciotto.profile

Eugene Tunik, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Rutgers University

Talk Title: "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, which motor cortex is the fairest of them all? A look inside prehension and virtual mirror therapy circuits"

Eugene Tunik, PT, PhD, received his PT from Northeastern University in 1997 and his PhD in Neuroscience from Rutgers University in 2003. Following this, he completed a three-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Psychology and Brain Science at Dartmouth College. Dr. Tunik's research aims to understand brain mechanisms involved in motor control and learning in health and disease and how this information can shape the delivery of therapeutic interventions to patients.

Website: http://www.northeastern.edu/bouve/directory/eugene-tunik/

Lee Baugh, Ph.D

Assistant Professor; Division of Basic Biomedical Sciences, Sanford School of Medicine, University of South Dakota

Talk Title: "Cognitive attribution of the source of an error in object lifting results in differences in motor generalization"

Dr. Baugh received his B.A. from the University of Waterloo in psychology, and his M.A. and Ph.D from the University of Manitoba in Brain and Behavior.  He conducted postdoctoral work at the Centre for Neuroscience Studies, at Queen’s University before joining the faculty at the Sanford School of Medicine at the University of South Dakota in 2011.  Dr. Baugh’s primary research interests examine how skilled actions are learned and performed, and how these processes can be affected by neurological damage.  To do this, Dr. Baugh utilizes a multi-disciplinary approach including functional magnetic resonance imaging, electroencephalography, and the advanced analysis of kinematic data.

Austin Hahn

Graduate Student; Clinical Ph.D. Program

Department of Psychology, College of Arts and Sciences, University of South Dakota

Talk Title: "Emotional Dysregulation and Risk Behaviors"

Austin is in his third year of the clinical psychology doctoral program at USD. His research interests include alcohol use and associated problems, traumatic stress, emotional regulation, and sexual risk taking. He seeks an academic research career that focuses on risk and resiliency mechanisms associated with self-regulation, substance use, and emotional functioning. He is specifically interested in cognitive and attentional biases associated with those topics.  Austin was the recipient of a CBBRe Graduate Student Travel Award in the Fall of 2013.

Michael Kruer, M.D.

Associate Scientist; Sanford Children’s Health Research Center, Sanford Research

Assistant Professor, Departments of Pediatrics, & Neurosciences

Sanford School of Medicine, University of South Dakota 

Talk Title: "Mutations in adaptor protein 5 subunits lead to a novel lysosomal storage disorder"

Michael Kruer attended Arizona State University (undergraduate), the University of Arizona (medical school), and performed postdoctoral work at the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix. Michael trained in pediatrics at Phoenix Children’s Hospital and in pediatric neurology and molecular neurogenetics at Oregon Health & Science University. Dr. Kruer has been selected as an American Academy of Neurology Clinical Research Fellow and has received the Shields Award from the Child Neurology Society and a Clinical Scientist Development Award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Michael currently works as a physician-scientist at Sanford Health, where he combines his clinical interests in neurogenetics and movement disorders with a translational research program focused on the molecular basis of movement disorders and neurodegenerative disease.

Megan Porter, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor; Department of Biology, College of Arts and Sciences, University of South Dakota

Talk Title: "Complexity compounded: The evolution and development of the mantis shrimp visual system"

Dr. Porter’s research program focuses on the ecology, evolution, and development of visual systems, integrating morphological, physiological, and molecular data to investigate the origins of image-forming photodetection.  Although she studies a variety of animal eyes, one of her main study organisms is the mantis shrimp due to its uniquely complex set of photoreceptors.  She received her Ph.D. from Brigham Young University, and spent time at the University of Maryland Baltimore County as a postdoctoral researcher before joining the USD Department of Biology in 2012.

Cliff Summers, Ph.D.

Professor; Biology and School of Medicine, College of Arts and Sciences, University of South Dakota

Talk Title: "Orexin and Neuropeptide S in Anxiety and Depression"

I am a behavioral neuroscientist, trained in comparative reproduction and endocrinology, investigating the mechanisms that drive decision-making, anxiety, depression, and social status. I am interested in the impact of social and environmental stressors on gene expression, neural and endocrine responses. My background includes ecology, evolution, and natural history; so I approach every question from an environment-by-neural circuit-by-gene interaction perspective. I believe that these interactions influence adaptive behavior and activities like learning, coping, developing social rank relationships, biological rhythms, reproduction, and social interaction.

Torrie Summers

Graduate Student; Division of Basic Biomedical Sciences, Sanford School of Medicine, University of South Dakota

Talk Title: "Opposing effects of endovanilloids in the treatment of persistent injury-related sensitization"

Torrie Summers is in her fourth year of her doctoral program in the Division of Basic Biomedical Sciences at the University of South Dakota's Sanford School of Medicine. As a member of Dr. Brian Burrell's lab, her research has focused on how the endocannabinoid/endovanilloid system modulates nociceptive and non-nociceptive signaling. Using the medicinal leech as a model system, her studies combine electrophysiology, pharmacology, and novel behavior assays to link plasticity in specific synaptic pathways to changes at the behavioral level. She has presented her research at the Society for Neuroscience’s and the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society’s annual conferences and her first paper has been conditionally accepted by the Journal of Experimental Biology. Torrie was the recipient of a CBBRe Graduate Student Travel Award in the Fall of 2013.