skip the i-GuideIllinois State UniversityAdmissions at ISUAcademics at ISUEvents at ISUMap of ISUISU A to Z ListingISU AccessibilityISU 150th Anniversary
College of Arts and Sciences News
Article Details
Faculty Profile: Paul Garris
Dr. Paul Garris
Paul Garris, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences with a joint position in Psychology, became interested in science in grade school. He remembers his science teachers encouraged his “rambunctious and inquisitive nature”—traits that would usually get a child into trouble. Instead of trouble, Garris got into neuroscience, and in the almost 10 years he has been at ISU, he has gained national recognition for both his lab and the university, putting ISU on the map as one of the places to study dopamine. Garris’s research on dopamine found that the brain chemical is not connected to pleasure, reversing decades of scientific theories on addiction and advancing research in Parkinson’s disease. These finding have received much attention from the scientific community and major funding agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

 

 

Currently, Garris is researching other implications of his dopamine findings. He and Psychology Professor Byron Heidenreich are examining the preclinical phase of Parkinson's disease, during which the brain begins to lose dopamine neurons but before the loss results in the cardinal symptoms of tremor, rigidity, and slowed movement. The project earned a $1 million grant from the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command to investigate how the brain compensates for the loss of dopamine neurons and whether there are in fact subtle symptoms during the preclinical phase.

Garris also is investigating the role of dopamine in sexual behavior. He explains that “in addition to controlling movement, dopamine also plays a key role in motivation.” Dopamine’s reign as the neural substrate of pleasure has ended as a result of Garris’s initial research, so his and other labs are working to redefine the role of dopamine in motivated behaviors. “What we think now,” Garris explains, “is that dopamine may be important for learning: it sets the motivational state for an animal; it makes you more reactive; and it makes you ready to respond to a stimulus that you didn’t expect.”

Not content to rest on the laurels of his groundbreaking dopamine research, Garris has multiple other research projects currently underway. For example, in his “Real-Time Animal Telemetry” project, Garris is developing new instrumentation for chemical microsensors, implanting a microsensor sensitive to dopamine in the brains of lab rats in order to measure some attribute of dopamine neuron function or relate changes in brain dopamine to behavior. The key advantage of this new instrument is a wireless connection between recording equipment and animal that will support truly free behavior. This project is funded by the National Science Foundation.


Garris works with student in the lab

Garris attributes his enthusiasm and success to his mentors, citing a “truly fabulous” anatomy and physiology undergraduate instructor for sparking his interests in neuroscience and a postdoctoral mentor who taught Garris by example how to “be quantitative and think outside the box.” This kind of mentoring has influenced Garris in his own work. “I firmly believe in the scholar-educator model for faculty,” Garris attests, “although I do realize how difficult it is to do both.” Despite the difficulties, Garris knows the importance of collaborating with students. “Clearly, without my students, I have no research program,” Garris admits. “It is also terribly exciting to see a student develop into a scientist and a true collaborator on a project.”

Garris earned his PhD at Indiana University in 1990 and joined the faculty at ISU in 1996 with joint positions in Biological Sciences, Psychology, and Chemistry. He has taught at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Peoria and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a research consultant, Garris continues to be instrumental in developing partnerships between the Central Illinois Neuroscience Foundation (a non-profit group focusing on medical education and stroke research) and the University. The little time Garris has away from his research is spent with his wife Kim and their children, Gabi and Zeke. He recently began competing in triathlons and wishes he had more time to fish.

Return