Shane O Mara
Professor
Psychology
Trinity College Dublin
Ireland
Biography
I am Professor of Experimental Brain Research in Trinity College Dublin, and am a Principal Investigator in, and currently the Director of, the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience and a member of the academic staff of the School of Psychology. I was an undergraduate and postgraduate at NUI Galway (BA, MA). I undertook my doctoral work (DPhil) at the University of Oxford. I am a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin (FTCD) and a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (FAPS). I was also elected a Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA). Research Focus: My research focuses on the relations between cognition, synaptic plasticity and behaviour, in the context of brain aging and depression. Research Interests: Biology of learning and memory; mechanisms of brain repair; drug action in CNS; synaptic plasticity; visualising in vivo neuronal activity; defining distribution of bioactive agents in CNS; imaging human brain during learning and memory; models of neurodegeneration; models of secondary depression and their treatment; organic disorders of memory. I am also interested in public policy applications and counterfactual interpretations of neuroscience. Research Support and Research Funding: My research work has been or currently is supported by the Wellcome Trust; Science Foundation Ireland; the Health Research Board; the European Commission; GlaxoSmithKline; Alkermes. I blog shaneomara.wordpress.com, mostly on neuroscience-, psychology-, science- and public policy-related themes (and maybe the intersection of all of these themes, but sometimes on other things entirely)
Research Interest
Biology of learning and memory; mechanisms of brain repair; drug action in CNS; synaptic plasticity; visualising in vivo neuronal activity; defining distribution of bioactive agents in CNS; imaging human brain during learning and memory; models of neurodegeneration; models of secondary depression and their treatment; organic disorders of memory. Key Research Question: How does the brain change as a result of experience? To investigate this general problem, I have adopted multidisciplinary techniques from diverse disciplines (e.g. neurophysiology, neuropharmacology, behavioural analysis, neuroimmunology). Techniques routinely used in my research group include: in vivo neurophysiology in freely-moving/anaesthetised rat (field potentials/action potential recordings of single neurons/neuronal ensembles); neurobehavioural assays (automated water, radial, open field; object exploration, odour discrimination, etc.); brain protein assays (BDNF; prostaglandins); radioimmunoassays; neurohistology.
Publications
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Tsanov M, Chah E, Reilly R, O Mara SM. , Respiratory cycle entrainment of septal neurons mediates the fast coupling of sniffing rate and hippocampal theta rhythm. , Eur J Neurosci., 39, (6), 2014, p957-974
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Dillingham C.M, Erichsen J.T, O Mara S.M, Aggleton J.P, Vann S.D, Fornical and nonfornical projections from the rat hippocampal formation to the anterior thalamic nuclei, Hippocampus, 25, (9), 2015, p977 - 992
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Callaghan C.K, O Mara S.M, Long-term cognitive dysfunction in the rat following docetaxel treatment is ameliorated by the phosphodiesterase-4 inhibitor, rolipram, Behavioural Brain Research, 290, 2015, p84 - 89
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Jankowski M.M, O†Mara S.M, Dynamics of place, boundary and object encoding in rat anterior claustrum, Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 9, (OCT), 2015
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Tsanov, M. O Mara, S.M., Decoding signal processing in thalamo-hippocampal circuitry: Implications for theories of memory and spatial processing, Brain Research, 1621, 2015, p368-379
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Jankowski M.M, Passecker J, Islam N, Vann S, Erichsen J.T, Aggleton J.P, O†Mara S.M, Evidence for spatially-responsive neurons in the rostral thalamus, Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 9, (OCT), 2015
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Shane OMara, Why Torture Doesnt Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation, 1st, Cambridge, MA and London, UK, Harvard University Press, 2015, 1-336pp
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O Mara Shane, Objects & Place cells in Claustrum, Trinity College Dublin, 2015
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Kelly JA, Boyle NT, Cole N, Slator GR, Colivicchi MA, Stefanini C, Gobbo OL, Scalabrino GA, Ryan SM, Elamin M, Walsh C, Vajda A, Goggin MM, Campbell M, Mash DC, O Mara SM, Brayden DJ, Callanan JJ, Tipton KF, Della Corte L, Hunter J, O Boyle KM, Williams CH, Hardiman O, First-in-class thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH)-based compound binds to a pharmacologically distinct TRH receptor subtype in human brain and is effective in neurodegenerative models., Neuropharmacology, 89C, 2015, p193-203
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Rahman M.M, Callaghan C.K, Kerskens C.M, Chattarji S, O Mara S.M, Early hippocampal volume loss as a marker of eventual memory deficits caused by repeated stress, Scientific Reports, 6, 2016, p29127
