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Winnipeg Chapter Society for Neuroscience presents.....

Manitoba Neuroscience Network Meeting

Friday, November 25th, 2011 9:00 - 10:00am

Dr. Larry Jordan  Professor, Department of Physiology University of Manitoba

Topic:  Control of locomotion by a serotonergic pathway arising in the parapyramidal region of the medulla

Location:  PX236/238 PsychHealth, Bannatyne Campus

Brief Bio: Born in Paris, Texas, in 1944, I grew up in Texarkana, Texas, the son of a bakery worker/farmer and a first grade teacher. I earned a B.A. degree in zoology at the University of Texas at Austin, and then entered graduate studies at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, where I was supervised by William D. Willis, Jr., a student of John Eccles in Canberra, Australia, and a former President of the Society for Neuroscience. I moved to Winnipeg in 1970 to assume a post-doctoral position with Dr. John Phillis, also trained in Canberra, who was a pioneer in CNS neuropharmacology. John moved to Saskatoon to take up the position of Head of Physiology there, and I remained in Winnipeg, supported by a Medical Research Council Scholarship. Since that time I was able to participate in the creation of the Winnipeg Spinal Cord Research Centre (http://www.scrc.umanitoba.ca/), with funding from the Health Sciences Centre Research Foundation, the annual Will-to-Win Golf Tournament (2012 will be its 29th year!), the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the International Human Frontier Science Program, the Canadian Network of Centres of Excellence, and the U.S. National Institutes of Health. I was the PI in the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Group on Spinal Cord Functional Systems for a number of years. I initiated the formation of the Winnipeg Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience, and I served two terms as Head of the Department of Physiology at the University of Manitoba (1992-2001). My research has focused on the neural control of locomotion, with progress along three major lines of investigation: (1) identification of the brain areas and neural pathways responsible for providing descending messages for the initiation of locomotion, (2) the study of spinal cord neurons that control locomotion at the spinal level and (3) discovery of new physiological properties of spinal motoneurons and interneurons that are central to their recruitment during locomotion. I am currently focusing on a descending pathway from a discrete serotonergic nucleus in the medulla that is involved in the initiation of locomotion and in control of inter- and intralimb coordination, and I am doing experiments to evaluate the potential of these neurons to restore coordinated locomotor movements after transplantation into the spinal cord of paraplegic rats.

For more information on Dr. Jordan's research, visit his website at:  http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/medicine/physiology/contacts/jordan.html

Kelly Jorundson Winnipeg Chapter Society for Neuroscience R4046 - 351 Tache Avenue Winnipeg, MB  R2H 2A6 T:  204.235.3939 f: 204.237.4092 Email: wcsn@sbrc.ca Website:  sfn-manitoba.ca