James Grau
  • Mary Tucker Currie Professor, APA & APS Fellow
  • Professor
Google Scholar Profile
Research Areas
  • Behavioral & Cellular Neuroscience

Biography

Office Hours: Mondays 1:00-2:30p, Thursdays 11:00a-12:30p

Accepting Students for 2024-2025?: No

Memberships: Institute for Neuroscience

Research Interests

Learning, neural plasticity, pain, and the recovery of function after neural injury.

Dr. Grau’s research has focused on a number of topics, including learning, pain modulation, and the recovery of function after spinal cord injury. One line of work has examined whether lower level neural systems within the spinal cord can learn. His work has provided evidence that neurons within the spinal cord are sensitive to both temporal and behavioral relations. Interestingly, this learning appears to involve many of the same neurochemical systems that mediate learning and memory within the brain. More recently, his laboratory has been exploring the implications of these studies for the recovery of function after neural injury. Current research has shown that pain input after injury can increase tissue loss, undermine the recovery of function, and foster the development of chronic pain. Funded by both the Neilsen Foundation and NIH, his laboratory is seeking new treatments to promote recovery and treat pain after injury.

Affiliated Research Cluster

Neuroscience. Learning, pain modulation, and recovery of function after spinal cord injuries in rodent models.

Selected Publications

    • Grau, J. W., Baine, R. E., Bean, P. A., Davis, J. A., Fauss, G. N., Henwood, M. K., Hudson, K. E., Johnston, D. T., Tarbet, M. M., & Strain, M. M. (2020). Learning to promote recovery after spinal cord injury. Experimental Neurology, 330, 113334 (1-20).

    • Davis, J. A., Bopp, A. C., Henwood, M. K., Baine, R. E., Cox, C. C., & Grau, J. W. (2020). Pharmacological transection of brain-spinal cord communication blocks pain-induced hemorrhage and locomotor deficits after spinal cord injury. Journal of Neurotrauma, 37, 1729-1739.
    • Hoy, K. C., Strain, M. M., Turtle, J. D., Lee, K. H., Huie, J. R., Hartman, J. J., Tarbet, M. M., Harlow, M. L, Magnuson, D. S. K., & Grau, J. W. (2020). Evidence that the central nervous system can induce a modification at the neuromuscular junction that contributes to the maintenance of a behavioral response. Journal of Neuroscience, 40, 9186-9209.
    • Strain, M. M., Johnston, D. T., Baine, R.E., Reynolds, J.A., Huang, Y.-J., Henwood, M. K., Fauss, G. N., Davis, J. A., Miranda, R., West, C. R., & Grau, J. W. (2021). Hemorrhage and locomotor deficits induced by pain input after spinal cord injury are partially mediated by changes in hemodynamics. Journal of Neurotrauma, 38, 3406-3430.
    • Fauss, G. N. K., Hudson, K. E., & Grau, J. W. (2022). Role of descending serotonergic fibers in the development of pathophysiology after spinal cord injury (SCI): Contribution to chronic pain, spasticity, and autonomic dysreflexia. Biology, 11.
    • Grau, J. W., Hudson, K. E., Tarbet, M. M., & Strain, M. M. (2022). Behavioral studies of spinal conditioning: The spinal cord is smarter than you think it is. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, 48, 435-457.
    • Hudson, K. E., & Grau, J. W. (2022). Ionic plasticity: Common mechanistic underpinnings of pathology in spinal cord injury and the brain. Cells, 11, 2910.
    • Davis, J. A., Bopp, A. C., Henwood, M. K., Baine, R. E., Bean, P., & Grau, J. W. (2023). General anesthesia blocks pain-induced hemorrhage and locomotor deficits after spinal cord injury in rats. Journal of Neurotrauma, 40, 2552-2565.
    • Davis, J. A., & Grau, J. W. (2023). Protecting the injured central nervous system: Do anesthesia or hypothermia ameliorate secondary injury? Experimental Neurology, 363, 11439.
    • Grau, J. W., Hudson, K. E., Johnston, D. T., & Partipilo, S. R. (2024) Updating perspectives on spinal cord function: Motor coordination, timing, relational processing, and memory below the brain. Invited paper for Horizons in Systems Neuroscience, Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 18.

     

Google Scholar Profile