Understanding brain diseases requires investigation of causes, pathologies and therapeutic interventions. Center for Neuroscience faculty and their colleagues elsewhere at UC Davis are involved in all three approaches to not only understand the causes and pathophysiology of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders, but also to translate findings in fundamental neuroscience to improve diagnosis and treatment.
Questions we are exploring include:
- What are the genes that confer susceptibility to schizophrenia and depressive illness?
- What is the association between molecular variations in the fragile X gene and fragile X syndrome?
- What are the underlying causes of autism?
- How does the brain change in aging, cerebrovascualr disease and Alzheimer’s disease?
- How can studies of normal brain development in humans and animals help us understand the causes of neurodevelopmental disorders?
- How can we better understand the neural basis of epilepsy?
- How do diseases of the eye manifest themselves in disturbances of vision?
- How do neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders manifest themselves in disturbances of cognition, perception, language and movement?