Faculty
Anthony Burgos-Robles, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Phone: (210) 458-6260
Email: Anthony.Burgos-Robles@utsa.edu
Areas of Specialization
- Cortical and Amygdala Circuits
- Emotion
- Learning and Memory
- Motivation
- Stress
Education
Postdoc in Neuroscience; Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences; Ponce School of Medicine, Puerto Rico
B.S. in Chemistry; Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico
Research Interests
The main interest of Dr. Burgos-Robles's lab is to understand alterations on brain function by psychological stress. Using animal models, the lab uses sophisticated tools to evaluate the evolution of stress-induced alterations in the activity of discrete neural populations and circuits. Particularly, they focus on limbic regions such as the amygdala and the medial prefrontal cortex, which are necessary for emotional learning, as well as their projections to key downstream regions that promote aversive and rewarding behavior, such as the periaqueductal gray and the nucleus accumbens, respectively.
Ultimately, this research program will identify key neural elements that exhibit stress vulnerability and reveal alterations on important neural mechanisms leading to emotional and behavioral deficits. In addition, molecular characterization of the neural populations exhibiting stress vulnerability may reveal key biomarkers that could be exploited to gather further insights.
Training Opportunities
Training future generations of influential neuroscientists is one of Dr. Burgos-Robles's top priorities. His lab provides a highly supportive and energetic atmosphere in which everyone collaborates and learns from each other while sharing rigorous scientific standards. Trainees learn sophisticated approaches such as neural recordings, optogenetics, chemogenetics, and neuropharmacology in behaving animals. These allow trainees to record the activity of discrete neural populations and circuits while turning them "ON" and "OFF" to evaluate their function during particular learning and behavioral tasks. Other approaches in the lab include immunohistochemistry, tissue imaging, and molecular profiling techniques. Trainees also have the opportunity to develop innovative behavioral assays, apply computational skills, and use machine learning algorithms to evaluate complex neural functions.
Publications
