A major aspiration of the Division of Life Sciences at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) is t become a national leader in neurobiology research and training of Hispanics in the next ten years, while fulfilling its regional mission to raise the level of educational achievement of people in South Texas. Th major goal of the Specialized Research Program at Minority institutions (SNRP) at UTSA is to conduct cutting edge collaborative neuroscience research with NIH health relevance, to enhance neuroscience research a he collaborating institutions, and to further the development of an vigorous academic milieu with the strengthening of an existing neuroscience seminar series. The SNRP will inspire students, and minority students in particular, to pursue research careers in neuroscience. A strong External Advisory Committee was chosen to guide the SNRP. All are members of the National Academy of Sciences and one is a Nobel Prize winner. The theme of the SNRP proposals is that experience-dependent changes in neuron morphology alter CNS function in important and exciting ways. For Derrick the addition of new neurons, as in neurogenesis, is measured in new neuron's response to long term potentiation and learning. For Gdovin the developmental changes in neurons or neuron assemblies, are measured in respiratory pace maker cells o pattern generators. For LeBaron changes in extracellular matrix proteins are measured in synaptic plasticity, as in the maintenance of long term potentiation. All of the projects have strong health relevance. Gdovin's collaborator is the James Leiter, Chief, Pulmonary and Critical Care at Dartmouth Medical School, and increased understanding of the development of respiratory oscillators and pacemakers in vertebrates has the potential to impact Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in humans. Derrick's collaborator is Bruce McEwen a Rockefeller University, and increased understanding of the mechanisms of neurogenesis in adult vertebrae brain has the potential to impact a large number of debilitating diseases in humans including any loss o unction due to trauma or disease, such as in Parkinson's Disease. LeBaron's collaborator is Joe L. Martinez, r. at UTSA, and increased understanding of how the brain stores information at a cellular level has the potential to suggest therapies for loss of memory function, the most dramatic being Alzheimer's Disease.
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