Research Overview Our focus is to develop better treatments for brain disorders. In particular we are interested in the role of neuropeptides in the regulation of critical brain processes that are disturbed in neuropsychiatric illnesses, such as schizophrenia. Neuropeptides are short versions of proteins (chains of amino acids) that play critical roles in multiple aspects of normal brain function. There are dozens of neuropeptides and learning about their function will open the door to completely novel targets for effective medications. In order to facilitate discovery of novel neuropeptide-based treatments, it is vital to have effective animal models of neuropsychiatric illness. Therefore, our laboratory also endeavors to develop novel, animal models with enhanced validity for these illnesses.
	To learn more about some of our discoveries regarding modeling human neuropsychiatric disorders in animals click here:
	To learn more about some of our discoveries regarding neuropeptide-based treatments click here:

Our Current Collaborators: