Dr. Arshad Khan
Dr. Khan conducts research focused on elucidating the neural circuits that are activated in the normal mammalian brain under conditions of hyper- and hypoglycemia with an aim to understand how these circuits may be affected by the chronic hyperglycemia associated with diabetes. With regard to methods, the student researchers will track activation patterns in the brain during glycemic challenges. They will learn an array of procedures including, animal handling, stereotaxic surgery vascular catheterizations, in vivo intravenous injections and intracranial microinjections, neuronal tract tracing, ex vivo acute slice physiology, tissue processing and histology, single and multiple-label indirect immunofluorescence cytochemistry, confocal and conventional fluorescence microscopy, photomicrography and image analysis, protein purification, immunoblotting and phosphoproteomic analysis of brain regions and neuroinformatics and neural circuit databasing. High school students will observe and assist in those methods that do not directly involve live animal procedures, and, along with undergraduate participants, can publish and present their findings at scientific meetings if their projects mature to such a stage.