Neural Mechanisms for Neuropathic Pain & Pain Perception: "Hitting the Reset Button"

Dr. Arthur Riegel is an assistant professor in Neuroscience at the Medical University of South Carolina. He received a BA in Chemistry and Biochemistry from the University of Kansas and the University of Arizona, respectively. He then went on to obtain an MS in Pharmacology and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of Arizona. Dr. Riegel then went on to complete a postdoctoral fellowship in Neurophysiology at the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Baltimore, MD and then one in Cellular Neuroscience at the Vollum Institute in Portland, OR where he later became a research assistant professor.

Dr. Riegel’s lab is interested in dopamine for its broad role in motor and motivational systems including cognition, attention and learning. They use experimental approaches in animals to investigate the synaptic brain circuitry tuned to support these behaviors and also investigate the related neuroadaptive changes (synaptic plasticity), which may underlie prevalent diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, psychosis, schizophrenia, and Tourette’s syndrome. Current research in his lab utilizes in vitro electrophysiology (whole cell patch clamp), calcium neuroimaging and uncaging (flash photolysis) in combination with behavioral self-administration to better understand the role of dopamine in normal and abnormal brain function.