Kitchener Lab ~ Introduction
Principal investigator: Dr Peter Kitchener
My interests fall into two main areas of Neuroscience. At a cellular level, I am interested in how neurons, and the immune cells that invade the brain, can migrate through the parenchyma of the developing brain. For neurons, the process of migration applies especially to the neurite process (dendrites and axons) which may travel large distances to get to their targets. Analogously, phagocytic cells leave the blood stream, invade, and migrate through the embryonic CNS before taking up residence as microglial cells.
My second major interest is in the development of and function of prefrontal cortex. The ventral / orbital regions of the prefrontal cortex are known to be involved in social perception and social behaviour but very little is known about the development of these regions. Of particular interest is the role, in development and in normal function, of the visceral sensory innervation of these regions. Both spinal and vagal visceral afferents project strongly to prefrontal regions (via brain stem and thalamus) but, in contrast to the decades of study on the exteroceptive modalities, (i.e. vision, touch, hearing) there has been comparatively little attention given to the to the development of the central pathways and structures involved with the viscero-sensory (enteroceptive) modality.
