Deborah Bauer
Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience
Molecular neuroscientist with an interest in glutamate transporters.
My long-term research interest has been glutamate transporters. In graduate school, I studied glutamate transporters in postmortem tissue from patients with schizophrenia. In my postdoctoral work, I studied the role of glutamate transporters in metabolism. At Wellesley, my lab studies glutamate transporters in the model organism C. Elegans. We do this by studying mutant worms in which the genes for one or more transporters have been knocked-out. We are interested in how glutamate transporters regulate behavior – particularly learning and memory – and how the transporters are involved in metabolism. We hope that these studies will teach us something about how the process of neurotransmission has evolved.
I am excited to share my passion for neuroscience with students in the lab and in the classroom. I teach across the curriculum including: Introduction to Neuroscience (100) and the accompanying practicum, Capstone Seminar in Neuroscience (300), Excitation, Plasticity, and Disease (305) with Laboratory, and Advanced Topics in Neuroscience: Neuropharmacology (332). I love the interactive nature of teaching and am excited to foster discussions about complex topics in neuroscience.
Outside of neuroscience I enjoy ultimate frisbee, hiking, visual art, and board games.
Education
- B.A., Wellesley College
- Ph.D., University of Michigan
Current and upcoming courses
Neuropharmacology
NEUR332
Neuropharmacology is the study of how drugs act on the nervous system. In this course, you will learn the molecular mechanisms of drug action, increase your depth of knowledge of the various neurotransmitter systems, and apply this knowledge to understand how drugs are used to treat disorders of the nervous system including pain, sleep disorders, affective disorders, addiction, schizophrenia, neurodegeneration, seizures, and stroke. You will have the opportunity to discuss primary literature, lead class discussions, and investigate the properties of drugs that appear in the popular press. Through these experiences you will improve your reading, critical thinking, writing, and oral presentation skills.