Professor Shane O'Mara

I am Professor of Experimental Brain Research in Trinity College Dublin, and am a Principal Investigator in, and currently the Director of, the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience and a member of the academic staff of the School of Psychology. I was an undergraduate and postgraduate at NUI Galway (BA, MA). I undertook my doctoral work (DPhil) at the University of Oxford. I am a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin (FTCD) and a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (FAPS). I was also elected a Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA). Research Focus: My research focuses on the relations between cognition, synaptic plasticity and behaviour, in the context of brain aging and depression. Research Interests: Biology of learning and memory; mechanisms of brain repair; drug action in CNS; synaptic plasticity; visualising in vivo neuronal activity; defining distribution of bioactive agents in CNS; imaging human brain during learning and memory; models of neurodegeneration; models of secondary depression and their treatment; organic disorders of memory. I am also interested in public policy applications and counterfactual interpretations of neuroscience. Research Support and Research Funding: My research work has been or currently is supported by the Wellcome Trust; Science Foundation Ireland; the Health Research Board; the European Commission; GlaxoSmithKline; Alkermes. I blog shaneomara.wordpress.com, mostly on neuroscience-, psychology-, science- and public policy-related themes (and maybe the intersection of all of these themes, but sometimes on other things entirely). I tweet at @smomara1.

  ACTIVATED PROTEIN-KINASE   ALZHEIMERS-DISEASE   AMINO-ACID RECEPTORS   AMMONS HORN   ANATOMICAL DATA   ANTERIOR CINGULATE CORTEX   ANTERIOR THALAMIC NUCLEI   ARACHIDONIC-ACID   AREA CA1   BDNF   BDNF PROTECTS   BEHAVIORAL STRESS   Biology of learning, memory and cognition   CA1   CALCIUM   CHRONIC NEUROINFLAMMATION   COGNITIVE MAPS   COMPLEX-SPIKE CELLS   CORTEX   CUE CONTROL   CYTOKINES   DENTATE GYRUS   DEPOTENTIATION   DISORIENTATION   EFFERENT CONNECTIONS   ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICALLY-DEFINED CLASSES   ENTORHINAL CORTEX   ENVIRONMENT   FIRING PATTERNS   FIRING PROPERTIES   FREELY-MOVING   FRONTAL-CORTEX   GYRUS IN-VITRO   HEAD DIRECTION CELLS   HIGH-FREQUENCY STIMULATION   HIPPOCAMPAL   HIPPOCAMPAL AREA CA1   HIPPOCAMPAL FORMATION   HIPPOCAMPAL SLICES   HIPPOCAMPUS   IN-VIVO   LASTING POTENTIATION   LEARNING AND MEMORY   LESIONS   LONG-TERM POTENTIATION   MESSENGER-RNA   METHYL-D-ASPARTATE   NEURONS   PAIRED-PULSE FACILITATION   PARIETAL CORTEX   PATH INTEGRATION   PLACE NAVIGATION   PLASTICITY   POTENTIATION   RAT   RAT HIPPOCAMPUS   RATS   SLICES   SPATIAL MEMORY   SUBICULUM   SYNAPTIC TRANSMISSION   WATER MAZE

Biology of learning and memory; mechanisms of brain repair; drug action in CNS; synaptic plasticity; visualising in vivo neuronal activity; defining distribution of bioactive agents in CNS; imaging human brain during learning and memory; models of neurodegeneration; models of secondary depression and their treatment; organic disorders of memory. Key Research Question: How does the brain change as a result of experience? To investigate this general problem, I have adopted multidisciplinary techniques from diverse disciplines (e.g. neurophysiology, neuropharmacology, behavioural analysis, neuroimmunology). Techniques routinely used in my research group include: in vivo neurophysiology in freely-moving/anaesthetised rat (field potentials/action potential recordings of single neurons/neuronal ensembles); neurobehavioural assays (automated water, radial, open field; object exploration, odour discrimination, etc.); brain protein assays (BDNF; prostaglandins); radioimmunoassays; neurohistology.