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Undergraduate Neuroscience Program College of Arts and Sciences | Heersink School of Medicine

Student Publications

Female student looking at brain scans.As part of the neuroscience program, students get to learn about an array of research areas and topics actively through a process of discovery.

Perhaps the most exciting part of being a neuroscience major at UAB is getting an opportunity to play active role in a research project by being a part of a neuroscience research laboratory. This provides several tangible and intangible rewards. While the intangibles include developing scientific thinking, enhancing creativity, problem-solving, and personality development in general, the tangibles include peer-reviewed research publications in reputed scientific journals and presenting your research at national and international conferences.

The list of publications below is a testimony to the high quality of research undergraduate neuroscience students engage in. For example, the average impact factor of the journals where our students published their papers in the year 2017 is 7.75! That is a stellar achievement, something graduate students strive for and struggle to accomplish.

Select Publications

  • 2017
    • Arrant AE, Filiano AJ, Unger DE, Young AH, Roberson ED. Restoring neuronal progranulin reverses deficits in a mouse model of frontotemporal dementia. Brain: a journal of neurology. 2017 Mar 29.
    • Roy B, Dunbar M, Shelton RC, and Dwivedi Y. Identification of MicroRNA-124-3p as a Putative Epigenetic Signature of Major Depressive Disorder. Neuropsychopharmacology 42 (2017), 864-875.
    • Stewart TS, Khan AU, Wang K, Pizarro D, Pati S, Buckingham SC, Olsen ML, Chatham JC, and LL McMahon. (2017) Acute Increases in Protein O-GlcNAcylation Dampen Epileptiform Activity in Hippocampus. Neurobiology of Disease. 37(34):8207– 8215.
    • Bhambhvani HP, Mueller TM, Simmons M, and Meador-Woodruff JH: Actin Polymerization is Reduced in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex of Elderly Patients with Schizophrenia. Translational Psychiatry.
    • Boros BD, Greathouse KM, Gentry EG, Curtis KA, Birchall EL, Gearing M, and Herskowitz JH. Dendritic spines provide cognitive resilience against Alzheimer's disease. Annals of Neurology. 2017 Sep 16. doi: 10.1002/ana.25049.
    • Womble B, Taub E, Hickson B., Purvis J., Mark V, McLain A, Uswatte G. Upper extremity motor training of a patient with initially motor complete high tetraplegia using Constraint-Induced Biofeedback therapy (CIBT). Spinal Cord Series and Cases.
  • 2016
    • Bhambhvani HP, Simmons M, Haroutunian V, and Meador-Woodruff JH. Decreased Expression of Cortactin in Schizophrenia Brain. NeuroReport. 2016; 27: 145-150.
    • Grady AK, Bowen KH, Hyde AT, Totsch SK, and Knight DC. (2016). Effect of continuous and partial reinforcement on the acquisition and extinction of human conditioned fear. Behavioral Neuroscience, 130, 36-43.
    • Heyward FD, Gilliam D, Coleman MA, Gavin CF, Wang J, Kaas G, Trieu R, Lewis J, Moulden J, Sweatt JD. Obesity weighs down memory through a mechanism involving the neuroepignetic dysregulation of Sirt1. Journal of Neuroscience, 2016 Jan 27; 36 (4): 1324-35.
    • Kennedy, AJ, Rahn EJ, Paulukaitis BS, Savell KE, Kordasiewicz HB, Wang J, Lewis JW, Posey J, Strange SK, Guzman-Karlsson MC, Phillips SE, Decker K, Motley ST, Swayze EE, Ecker DJ, Michael TP, Day JJ, and J. David Sweatt. Tcf4 regulates synaptic plasticity, DNA methylation, and memory function. Cell Reports. 2016 Sep 6;16(10):2666-85.
    • Kwon M, Liu R, and Chien L. Compensation for Blur Requires Increase in Field of View and Viewing Time. PloS one, 11(9) (2016), e0162711.
    • McCoy CR, Golf SR, Melendez-Ferro M, Perez-Costas E, Glover ME, Jackson NL, Stringfellow SA, Pugh PC, Fant AD, and Clinton SM. Altered metabolic activity in the developing brain of rats predisposed to high versus low depression-like behavior. Neuroscience. 2016 Jun 2;324:469-84.
    • Ponnazhagan R, Harms AS, Thome AD, Jurkuvenaite A, Gogliotti R, Niswender CM, Conn PJ, Standaert DG. The Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor 4 Positive Allosteric Modulator ADX88178 Inhibits Inflammatory Responses in Primary Microglia. Journal of NeuroImmune Pharmacology. 2016 Jun;11(2):231-7.
    • Savell KE, Gallus NV, Simon R, Brown J, Revanna J, Osborn MK, Song EY, O’Malley JJ, Stackhouse CT, Norvil A, Gowher H, Sweatt JD and J Day. Extracoding RNAs regulate neuronal DNA methylation dynamics. Nature Communications 2016.
  • 2015
    • Arrant AE, Patel AR, Roberson ED. Effects of Exercise on Progranulin Levels and Gliosis in Progranulin-Insufficient Mice. ENeuro, 2015 May-Jun; 2(3).
    • Decker JS, Stannard SJ, McManus B, Wittig SM, Sisiopiku VP, Stavrinos D. The impact of billboards on driver visual behavior: a systematic literature review. Traffic Injury Prevention. 2015;16:234-9.
    • McCollum LA, Walker CK, Roche JK, and Roberts RC (2015). Elevated Excitatory Input to the Nucleus Accumbens in Schizophrenia: A Postmortem Ultrastructural Study. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 41(5), 1123–1132.
    • Waite ME, Tomkovich A, Quinn TL, Schumann AP, Dewberry LS, Totsch SK, and Sorge RE. Efficacy of common analgesics for spontaneous postsurgical pain in rats. JAALAS, 54 (2015): 420-5.
  • 2014
    • DeRamus TP, Black BS, Pennick MR, Kana RK. (2014). Enhanced parietal cortex activation during location detection in children with autism. Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, 6(1):37.
    • Dougherty SE, Hollimon JJ, McMeekin LJ, Bohannon AS, West AB, Lesort M, Hablitz JJ, Cowell RM. Hyperactivity and cortical disinhibition in mice with restricted expression of mutant huntingtin to parvalbumin-positive cells. Neurobiology of Disease. 2014 Feb;62:160-71.
    • Layfield S, Burge W, Mitchell W, Ross L, Denning C, Amthor F, Visscher KM. The Effect of Speed of Processing Training on Microsaccade Amplitude. PLoS One (2014).
    • Murdaugh DL, Nadendla KD, Kana RK. Differential role of temporoparietal junction and medial prefrontal cortex in causal inference in autism: an independent component analysis. Neuroscience Letters, 2014 May 7; 568:50-5.
    • Zovkic IB, Paulukaitis BS, Day JJ, Etikala DM, Sweatt JD. Histone H2A.Z subunit exchange controls consolidation of recent and remote memory. Nature, 2014 Nov 27;515(7528):582-6.
  • 2013
    • Gauthier LV, Taub E, Mark VW, Barghi A, Uswatte G. Atrophy of spared gray matter tissue predicts poorer motor recovery and rehabilitation response in chronic stroke. Stroke. (2012). 43(2):453-7.
  • 2010
    • Pivtoraiko VN, Harrington AJ, Mader BJ, Luker AM, Caldwell GA, Caldwell KA, Roth KA, Shacka JJ. Low-dose bafilomycin attenuates neuronal cell death associated with autophagy-lysosome pathway dysfunction. Journal of Neurochemistry. 2010 Aug;114(4):1193-204.