Karie Scrogin, PhD
Title/s: <p>Professor</p> <p>Molecular Pharmacology and Neuroscience</p>
Office #: CTRE 426
Email: kscrogi@luc.edu
Title/s: <p>Professor</p> <p>Molecular Pharmacology and Neuroscience</p>
Office #: CTRE 426
Email: kscrogi@luc.edu
Current Interests: Neuroendocrine regulation of circulation in shock, heart failure and anxiety
Our research focuses on the neural control of circulation. More specifically, we study the mechanisms by which the neurotransmitters serotonin and norepinephrine modulate sympathetic control of the cardiovascular system in health and during acute and chronic diseases such as circulatory shock and heart failure. Our recent work has demonstrated that serotonin 5-HT1A receptor agonists act in the brainstem to promote beneficial hemodynamic responses during severe hypovolemia. We are currently pursuing efforts to characterize the neural circuitry involved in this reflex response in the hopes it may one day be exploited to improve treatment for hypovolemic shock. A second focus of the laboratory is to understand the central nervous system mechanisms that contribute to the increased morbidity and mortality observed in patients that develop depression and anxiety following myocardial infarct. To this end, we have developed a rat model of coronary ischemia that displays autonomic abnormalities and anxiety responses that parallel those displayed by human patients with heart failure. Our current efforts are focused on using this model to characterize alternations in adrenergic and serotonergic neurotransmission in brain regions that regulate behavioral and autonomic responses to anxiogenic stimuli, and to determine how chronic treatment with antidepressants influences these pathways. We utilize a number of methods to pursue these aims including telemetric recordings of blood pressure and sympathetic activity as well as brain microdialysis in awake, behaving rats and mice, extracellular recordings from the central nervous system in the rat, neural tract tracing and immunohistochemistry combined with deconvolution microscopy, viral mediated knockdown of targeted proteins in rat and mouse brain, as well as Western Blot and PCR quantification of proteins and message from microdissected brain nuclei.