Research Overview
Excellence in Research
Our Core Facilities are state-of-the art resources that provide training, equipment, and outsourcing for diverse needs such as functional imaging, gene sequencing and transgenics, microarray analysis, animal behavior, tissue banking, and advanced microscopy. Such resources allow our students to efficiently integrate multiple disciplines to produce innovative findings.
We also have a High Performance Computing Cluster for running complex neural simulations and bioinformatics algorithms.
A strong research environment enables our students to become confident, skilled investigators; typically a student will have 2-4 publications at graduation in addition to other honors and awards. Our students also compete very well for research funding. In 2015, Emory ranked first in the U.S. for students with NIH predoctoral fellowships with 50, 13 of which were held by Emory neuroscience students.
To date, the program has produced over 200 alumni, and those that have chosen to stay in research have obtained excellent postdoctoral positions to pursue further training, as well as tenure-track faculty appointments. Our alumni compete very well for jobs in academia, industry, and research institutes.
Research Areas
Examples of Ongoing Research Projects
Yoland Smith lab: Thalamic neurons transfected with excitatory opsins Channelrhodopsins (green) expressed in the motor thalamus of the monkey after viral transfection
Donna Maney lab: From Genes to Behavior We study how changes in gene sequence have led to the evolution of alternative phenotypes in a songbird model.
Yoland Smith lab: Cholinergic interneurons transfected with excitatory opsins A cholinergic interneuron (revealed with ChAT, red) expresses channelrhodopsins (green) after viral transfection in the monkey putamen
Yoland Smith lab: Medium spiny neurons in the striatum of the monkey Medium spiny neurons in the monkey striatum express channelrhodopsins (revealed with immunoperoxidase) after viral transfection
Gary Miller lab Stimulated striatal dopamine release before and after methylphenidate application as measured by fast-scan cyclic voltammetry
Samuel Sober Lab: Bengalese Finch with headphones The headphones allow manipulation of the way the birds hear their own songs so that we can study how the brain processes auditory information and learns from experience
