Tuan Tran

Tuan Tran, PhD

Associate Professor
Neuroscience Program Director
Director of Undergraduate Research at REDE
Office: Rawl 225 | Phone: 252.328.6445
Email: trant@ecu.edu  | My NCBI Bibliography

 

 

 

Service

Research Agenda

Behavioral Neuroscience | Developmental Psychobiology | Learning & Memory | Quantitative Neuroanatomy

My research involves studying rodent models of neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders. My lab uses behavioral tests that assess cognitive function and neuroanatomical techniques that measure brain changes. Altogether, I incorporate methodological approaches that may provide better understanding of brain-behavior relationships (i.e., behavioral neuroscience).

  • In one line of research, I study fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs), which includes fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and other maternal alcohol-related deficits. Currently, I am examining whether early alcohol exposure in rodents leads to learning deficits as measured by eyeblink classical conditioning, the most well-studied form of associative learning in mammalian neuroscience. I also use the Morris water maze task to assess spatial and non-spatial learning/memory. To determine whether the early alcohol insult also results in brain dysfunction that correlates with the behavioral deficits, I use a variety of histological, histochemical, and morphometric techniques. It is hoped that answers about alcohol’s impact on brain-behavior relationships can be better understood in animals, and in turn guide research that examines chemical or behavioral therapies that minimize or prevent such a deplorable condition in humans.
  • In another line of research with faculty at BSOM and the University of South Carolina, I examine rodent models of neurodegenerative disorders, particularly Alzheimer’s disease. I am examining behavioral and cognitive deficits in triple-transgenic (3xTg-AD) mice that bear the PS1-M146V, APP-Swe, and tauP301L mutations – mutations that lead to hallmark pathologies in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Similar to my work on FASDs, I use eyeblink classical conditioning and Morris maze testing to assess cognitive function in these mice.

Current Undergraduate Research Assistants

  • Douglass Bell, ECU Class of 2025
  • Jennette Antinore, ECU Class of 2026

Education and Post-Graduate Training

  • BS, Regis University, Denver, CO
  • MA, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, Experimental Psychology – Behavioral Neuroscience
  • PhD, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, Experimental Psychology – Behavioral Neuroscience
  • Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Associate, Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis

Memory Lane