Vorhees / Williams Lab Research
Our joint laboratory works under the direction of Charles Vorhees, PhD, and Michael Williams, PhD. The lab’s primary focus is on understanding how drugs, genes and / or environmental agents adversely affect the developing brain and cause neurological and cognitive impairments. Members of the lab work on projects ranging from chronic stress to amphetamines, from creatine transporter deficiency to genes involved in depression, and from lead-manganese toxicity to autism and other neuropsychiatric disorders. The lab also runs the Animal Behavior Core.
Our research focuses on how early insults (drug, immune or environmental; with or without secondary events, or stressors) to central nervous system (CNS) development trigger changes in brain development that have lasting consequences. We investigate brain structure, neurochemistry and function with a particular interest in adverse effects on different types of learning and memory in animal model systems. Our goal is to develop treatments for developmental brain disorders that improve the long-term outcomes for children with abnormalities of brain development.
