Exposure to a broad range of environmental factors, from chemicals to diet to drugs of abuse, can alter neural development and cause long-term dysfunction. Our RIG members study these processes using an array of model systems, including rodents, fish, arthropods, nematodes, and organoids to better understand and prevent environmentally-driven disease.

Main goal: We strive to bring together faculty and trainees across campus who are interested in a wide range of neuroscience-related topics, with the goal of supporting innovative, collaborative, and translational research on the relationships between environmental exposures and the formation and function of the nervous system.

Group Leaders

Marsden, Kurt
Associate Professor, Dept. of Biological Sciences
Email  |  Bio

Kurt’s lab is focused on defining how genetic and environmental factors impact neural development and behavior. Using zebrafish as a model system and an array of techniques including high-throughput behavior analysis, next generation sequencing, proteomics, and confocal microscopy, his group aims to uncover mechanisms that underlie neurodegenerative diseases like ALS as well as neurodevelopmental conditions like autism, epilepsy and CHARGE Syndrome. Kurt’s lab has also established collaborations with other groups at NCSU to study the impact of Vitamin D signaling and exposure to cadmium and mixtures of cyanotoxins on neural development. In taking on the leadership of the Behavior and Neuroscience RIG Kurt hopes to further foster a collaborative and broad neuroscience community within CHHE and across NC State to share expertise and resources and to support new funding efforts and trainee development.

Brooks, Eric
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Molecular Biomedical Sciences
Email  |  Bio

Eric’s focus is on the developmental signaling systems that pattern and reshape the earliest stages of neurodevelopment and how environmental factors interact with these processes. Using mouse genetic models, single-cell sequencing, and advanced microscopy, his group is currently working on understanding how individual cells are coordinated to drive the massive tissue remodeling required for neural tube closure, a critical process that lays the structural foundation for the central nervous system. Defects in this process, caused by genetic or environmental perturbations, are among the most common and devastating human developmental diseases. As a co-leader of the Behavior and Neuroscience RIG along, Eric will work to support the fantastic group collaborative and cross-disciplinary Neuroscience faculty and trainees within the CHHE and across NC State.