Professor

Blanchette Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute

Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, WVU

Email: bschreurs@hsc.wvu.edu
Phone: 304-293-0497

Fax: 304-293-7536

Education:

Ph.D. – University of Iowa

Fellowship – National Institute of Health

Research Interests and Goals:

Dr. Schreurs’ research is focused on determining the behavioral and biological basis of learning and memory.  The need to understand how normal learning takes place is essential in understanding how failures of learning and memory take place in diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. His ultimate goal is to identify and characterize individual brain cells involved in learning and memory so we can understand the biochemical and molecular processes that create and maintain our memories. The methods used to pursue his research goals are classical conditioning procedures; in vivo neural recording and in vitro slice electrophysiological recordings; histological and immunohistochemical labeling; confocal microscopy; and magnetic resonance imaging. He and his team have developed an animal model of Alzheimer’s disease by using simple dietary methods such as adding cholesterol to the diet. This in turn induces beta amyloid pathology in the brain which mimics some aspects of Alzheimer’s disease. As a result of learning they have found that animals can show exaggerated startle responses that serve as a model for post traumatic stress disorder. Results from these projects provide platforms for testing therapeutics which is in conjunction with BRNI’s theme of Molecular Medicine of Memory. For example, they have been instrumental in showing the efficacy of protein kinase C activators in improving learning and memory.

He continues his programmatic research on three, separate, NIH grant-funded, multi-year projects that focus on animal models of Alzheimer’s disease and post traumatic stress disorder as well as viral tracing of learning and memory pathways in the brain. They have been able to show that cholesterol in the diet is detrimental to the recall of previously acquired memories as well as the acquisition of new memories.  They have also begun to demonstrate that the animal model equivalent of traditional cognitive behavioral therapy for post traumatic stress disorder may be less efficacious than more involved treatments that include suppression of exaggerated responses to stressful events.  In fact, our preclinical model suggests that brief periods of cognitive behavioral therapy may actually make some symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder worse. He is currently beginning to track and identify individual cells in the brain that control the responses that index learning and memory.

In short, Dr. Schreurs’ research at BRNI identifies unequivocal, endogenous substrates of memory by providing rigorous, well-controlled behavioral models of learning, their relevant anatomical pathways and electrophysiological and structural underpinnings.

List of Recent Publications:

Burhans, L. B., & Schreurs, B. G.  (2008).  Inactivation of the central nucleus of the amygdala abolishes conditioning-specific reflex modification of the rabbit nictitating membrane response and delays classical conditioning.  Behavioral Neuroscience, 122, 75-88.

Wang, D. Darwish, D. S., Schreurs, B.G., & Alkon, D.L.  (2008).  An analysis of long-term cognitive enhancing effects of Bryostatin-1 on the rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) nictitating membrane response.  Behavioural Pharmacology, 19, 245-256.

Burhans, L.B., Carrie Smith-Bell, C.A., & Schreurs, B.G.  (2008).  Conditioned reflex modification of the rabbit’s nictitating membrane response and heart rate: behavioral rules, neural substrates, and potential applications to post-traumatic stress disorder.  Behavioral Neuroscience, 122, 1191-1206.

Burhans, L.B., Smith-Bell, C.L. & Schreurs, B.G.  (2009).  Effects of extinction on classical conditioning and conditioning-specific reflex modification of rabbit heart rate.  Behavioural Brain Research, doi:10.1016/j/bbr/2009.09.007.

Darwish, D.S., Wang, D., Konat, G.W., & Schreurs, B.G.  (2010).  Dietary cholesterol impairs memory and memory increases brain cholesterol and sulfatide levels.  Behavioral Neuroscience, 124, 115-123.

Awards:

National Institutes of Health Award of Merit

Dean’s Award For Excellence, West Virginia University School of Medicine.