Timothy Pons, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Surgical Sciences (Neurosurgery)

University of North Carolina at Greensboro, B.A. (1979) Vanderbilt University, Ph.D. (1984)

Somatosensory Plasticity in the Macaque

Our research program focuses on somatosensory information, and how it is processed, stored, and retrieved for use in perception, memory and action. We have begun to identify the functional areas that comprise the somatosensory system (both cortical and subcortical) in macaques and to determine their interrelationships through combined use of electrophysiological, behavioral, anatomical, and neurosurgical techniques. Specifically, we have begun to examine the capacity of the adult brain to undergo reorganization in response to perturbations of the central and peripheral nervous systems. Until recently, these remarkable post-injury reorganizational changes in the adult brain were not thought possible; a long-held tenet in neuroscience was that after a critical period early in development the brain became "hard-wired." However, we have shown that the brain not only possesses the ability to reorganize itself after injury, but it also does so at a greater level than was previously known. What is not known, however, is either the mechanism responsible or whether the reorganized cortex has any adaptive value to the animal. One of our research goals will be to focus on these areas.