The Neuroscience PhD program at UTSA is a diverse and inclusive research community. We provide trainees with cutting-edge research opportunities and professional development to ensure that students achieve their career goals.

Student Achievements

Recent Research Fellowships

Uchit Bhaskar - Diana Jacobs Kalman / American Federation for Aging Research Scholarship

Tara Flaugher - Department of Defense: SMART Award; Pat Tillman Foundation: Tillman Scholar Award

Brandon Garcia - National Science Foundation: Graduate Research Fellowship Program

Celia Gagliardi - National Institutes of Health: F31 Fellowship

Morgan Johnston - National Science Foundation: Graduate Research Fellowship Program

James Jones - National Institutes of Health: F31 Fellowship

Karina Meyer-Acosta - National Institutes of Health: F31 Fellowship

Ryan Wood - National Institutes of Health: F31 Fellowship

Recent Dissertations

Tara Flaugher, PhD - Comprehension after Concussion: An Analysis of the Impact of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury and Related Symptoms on Sentence and Word-Pair Comprehension (Spring 2024)

James Jones, PhD - Synaptic Inhibition of the External Globus Pallidus (Fall 2023)

Kannan Thangamani, PhD - The Host Pathogen Interaction between Human Neutrophils and Coxiella burnetii - An Intricate Webbed Affair (Fall 2023)

Celia Gagliardi, PhD - Neural Mechanisms of Spatial Reorientation: How We Regain Our Bearings When Lost (Summer 2023)

Matthew Lopez, PhD - Memory Consolidation: How Reliable are our Memories (Summer 2023)

Bahram Pahlavan, PhD - The ghost inside the machine: Intrinsic excitability modulates neuronal function and synaptic integration (Summer 2023)

Erin Hurley, PhD - Not(ch) Just Development: Role of Notch Signaling in Neurodegeneration (Fall 2022)

Vanessa Cerda, PhD - Two Times Four = Dos Por Cuatro (Summer 2022)

Bryan Fowler, PhD - A Modest Petrosal: Elucidating Function and Molecular Identity in the Understudied Peripheral Taste Ganglion (Summer 2022)

Amandine Grenier, PhD - The Meaning of Multiplication: Electrophysiological Evidence of Semantic Memory Access and Organization in Children (Spring 2022)

Matthew Wood, PhD - Challenging the Gold Standard in Lifespan Cognition Neuroscience: Electrophysiological Studies of How We Do Arithmetic as We Grow and Comprehend Sentences as We Age (Spring 2022)

Recent Publications

Gagliardi CM, Normandin ME, Keinath AT, Julian JB, Lopez MR, Ramos-Alvarez MM, Epstein RA, Muzzio IA. Distinct neural mechanisms for heading retrieval and context recognition in the hippocampus during spatial reorientation. Nature Communications (2024)

Jones JA, Peña J, Likhotvorik RI, Garcia-Casteñeda BI, Wilson CJ. Comparison of unitary synaptic currents generated by indirect and direct pathway neurons of the mouse striatum. Journal of Physiology (2024)

Wood RM, Vasquez EL, Goyins KA, Kuri EG, Connelly K, Humayun S, Macpherson LJ. Cyclophosphamide induces the loss of taste bud innervation in mice. Chemical Senses (2024)

Lopez MR, Wasberg SMH, Gagliardi CM, Normandin ME, Muzzio IA. Mystery of the memory engram: Histroy, current knowledge, and unanswered questions. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (2024)

Cerda VR, Flaugher TG, Montafur Soria P, Wicha NYY. Bilingual problem size effect: An ERP study of multiplication verification and production in two languages. Translational Issues in Psychological Science (2023)

Hurley EM, Mozolewski P, Dobrowolski R, Hsieh J. Familial Alzheiumer's disease-associated PSEN1 mutations affect neurodevelopment through increased Notch signaling. Stem Cell Reports (2023)

Wood M*, Grenier AE*, Wicha NYY. Development is in the details: event-related theta oscillations reveal children and adults verify multiplication facts differents. Psychophysiology (2023)

Jones JA, Higgs MH, Olivares E, Peña J, Wilson CJ. Spontaneous activity of the local GABAergic synaptic network causes irregular neuronal firing in the External Globus Pallidus. Journal of Neuroscience (2023)

Pahlavan B, Buitrago N, Santamaria F. Macromolecular rate theory explains the temperature dependence of membrane conductance kinetics. Biophysical Journal (2023)

Fowler BE, Ye J, Humayun S, Lee H, Macpherson LJ. Regional specialization of the tongue revealed by gustatory ganglion imaging. iScience (2022)

Johnston MP and Wanat MJ. Mitigating the impact of adolescence isolation on the development of social anxiety: a potential role for oxytocin. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience (2022)

Lefner MJ, Stelly CE, Fonzi KM, Zurita H, Wanat MJ. Critical periods when dopamine controls behavioral responding during Pavlovian learning. Psychopharmacology (2022)

Dickson DS*, Grenier AE*, Obinyan BO, Wicha NYY. When multiplying is meaningful in memory: electrophysiological signature of the problem size effect in children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology (2022)

Cerda VR, Montufar Soria P, Wicha NYY. Reevaluating the language of learning advantage in bilingual arithmetic: an ERP study on spoken multiplication verification. Brain Sciences (2022)

Lefner MJ, Dejeux MI, Wanat MJ. Sex differences in behavioral responding and dopamine release during Pavlovian learning. eNeuro (2022)