简介

Ph.D. (Physiology) University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, 1994. Research Description: Skeletal muscle is a very plastic tissue. Everybody is familiar with muscle's response to exercise: shifts in activity patterns activate molecular pathways that induce predictable changes in muscle size and metabolic properties. However, some muscles and motor systems deviate from these stereotypical changes. These variants of the skeletal muscle “mold” also react differently to neuromuscular diseases, mitochondrial myopathies, and some muscular dystrophies. My laboratory studies respiratory, extraocular and other craniofacial muscles, all constantly active motor systems that also have peculiar phenotypes. Our experimental approach uses multiple animal models and techniques to analyze how these muscles and their corresponding motor neurons communicate, and how their gene expression, metabolism and contractile function change in response to activity, stressors, and age.