Neuroscience Program

Robert Stewart
Assoc. Professor of Psychology

Department: Psychology
Email: stewartb@wlu.edu
Phone: (540) 458-8837
Office:Parmly Hall 231
Curriculum Vitae: http://psych.wlu.edu/StewFiles/cv2005.htm

Education

Post Doctoral Research Fellow,Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Medical College of Virginia/Virginia Commonwealth University, 1994-96.

Ph.D., Neuroscience, University of Virginia, 1994.

Teaching

Neuroscience 120: Introduction to Neuroscience; Psychology 111: Brain and Behavior; Psychology 150: Psychoactive Drugs and Behavior; Psychology 253: Physiological Psychology - Motivated Behaviors; Psychology 258: Neural Mechanisms of Sensory and Motor Function; Psychology 353: Directed Research in Physiological Psychology

Research

My current research uses whole nerve and single fiber neurophysiology with simultaneous in vivo lingual voltage clamping, immunohistochemistry, histochemistry, and biochemistry to study the functional regulation of the transduction pathway for sodium taste stimuli, the amiloride-sensitive sodium channel. A more recent interest focuses on developmental expression of the G-protein subunit, alpha-gustducin, and the emergence of taste sensitivity to stimui that taste bitter to humans.

Recent Scholarship

1. Hendricks SJ, RE Stewart, GL Heck, JA DeSimone and DL Hill (2000). Development of rat chorda tympani sodium responses: Evidence for age-dependent changes in global amiloride-sensitive Na+ channel kinetics. Journal of Neurophysiology 84: 1531-1544. (abstract)

2. Stewart RE, V Lyall, GL Heck, GF Feldman, and JA DeSimone (1998). Acid-induced responses in hamster chorda tympani and intracellular pH (pHi) tracking by taste receptor cells. American Journal of Physiology 275 (Cell Physiology 44): C227-C238. (abstract) (free full-text)

3. Stewart RE, JA DeSimone and DL Hill (1997). Invited Review. New perspectives in gustatory physiology: transduction, development, and plasticity. American Journal of Physiology 272 (Cell Physiology 41): C1-C26. (abstract)

4. Stewart RE, GL Heck and JA DeSimone (1996). Taste-mixture suppression: Functional dissection of cellular and paracellular origins. Journal of Neurophysiology 75: 2124-2128. (abstract)

5. Stewart RE and DL Hill (1996). Time-Course of Saline-Induced Recovery of the Gustatory System in Sodium-Restricted Rats. American Journal of Physiology 270 (Regulatory, Comparative and Integrative Physiology 39) : R704-R712. (abstract)

6. Stewart RE, PS Lasiter, DJ Benos and DL Hill (1995). Immunohistochemical correlates of peripheral gustatory sensitivity to Na+ and amiloride. Acta Anatomica 153: 310-319. (abstract)

Other Information

Click here to obtain a PDF copy of my recent APS talk with Dr. Jeanine S. Stewart about the use of iPod technology to teach psychology.