My laboratory's primary interest over the past 15 years has been the brain imaging of rodent behaviors as they occur in the nontethered, nonrestrained animal. A primary tool has been perfusion based mapping using the classic autoradiographic methods. Unique about our methods is that they allow us to evaluate changes in functional brain activation at the circuit level across the entire brain. Perfusion or metabolic mapping, as we have proposed, fills a gap in the current armamentarium of imaging tools in that it can deliver a 3D assessment of functional activation of the awake, nonrestrained animal, with a spatial resolution of 100 microns.
We have made significant contributions to the methodology in several areas (a) adapting statistical parametric mapping and connectivity analyses to three-dimensional autoradiographic data sets of the rat and mouse brain, (b) developing methods to allow the generation of cortical flat maps in rats and, (c) developing an implantable minipump that allows radiotracer bolus administration by remote activation in the freely moving animal. An ongoing focus is the application of functional connectivity analyses [correlation matrices of regional changes in CBF, graph theoretical analysis of network �hubs� (Pajek software), effective connectivity analyses using structural equation modeling].
The lab has broad experience evaluating behavioral function in rat and mouse models of pain, brain injury, and fear, as well as exercise. Extensive experience is available for vascular surgical procedures in rats, mice and rabbits, as well as expertise in physiologic monitoring (locomotor activity, telemetric monitoring of EMG, EEG, ECG, cardiac output).

The expertise of the laboratory include functional brain mapping, animal behavior, physiologic monitoring (EEG, EMG, EKG) and basic histochemistry.