Neuroscience Candidate Presentation

After completing his Ph.D., Dr. Vohra pursued further research in the pharmacology and neurobiology of learning and memory at Su-Yat-sun University in China through an Indo-Chinese scholar exchange grant, then completed post-doctoral research in neurodegeneration at the University of Minnesota School of Medicine. At Washington University School of Medicine, he served as a senior scientist and research instructor, and at Yale University School of Medicine, he was an associate research scientist. Dr. Vohra’s research at William Jewell is focused on Parkinson’s disease, investigating whether early sign of enteric neurodegeneration can be used as an early marker of neurological and neurotoxicological conditions. He has published 32 peer-reviewed research publications, and in 2015, his research module was accepted by the National Science Foundation for presentation at a workshop and the International Meeting of American Society of Cell Biology.

Dr. Buhusi received a MEng in Computer Engineering from Technical University of Iasi, Romania, and a PhD in Psychology from Duke University, USA. After a postdoc in Neurosciences, he received a faculty position at Duke University, to study the neurobiology of attentional processing of time. In 2006, he accepted an Associate Professor position in the Neurosciences Dept. at Medical University of South Carolina to study animal models of neuropsychiatric disorders in which interval timing is disregulated, and the genetic regulation of brain circuits involved in time perception. In 2012 he moved to Utah State University where he is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience in the USTAR BioInnovations Center, studying the neurobiology of timing, learning, memory, attention, and decision making.

Dr. Kirwan studys the brain mechanisms that allow people to form and retain memories of events. This includes big events, like your wedding or your sixth birthday, as well as more mundane information, like where you parked your car or what the word “doughnut” means. One question that occupies much of his time is this: What information will we forget, and why? To address this and other questions, he and his students use a number of methods, including neuropsychological studies with memory-impaired patients, behavioral studies with healthy adults, and functional neuroimaging (fMRI) experiments. These fMRI experiments are conducted at the new MRI Research Facility on BYU campus.

The Kim Lab: Assessing the mechanism of neuropathology in Parkinson’s disease and developing potential combination therapies.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s disease, affecting more than 1% of the population above the age of 65. The disorder is primarily characterized by the selective loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc) in the midbrain and formation of intraneuronal inclusions called “Lewy bodies” which contain alpha-synuclein as their major protein component. The pathological mechanisms involved in neuropathology associated with PD is largely unknown, however, the A53T mutation of alpha-synuclein causes Lewy body formation and is a well-known genetic PD model.