Kristen Smith-Edwards

Post-doc

Phone: 412-648-9745
Email: EDWARDSK@pitt.edu

There are a number of gastrointestinal disorders, many of which can lead to visceral pain; however, our understanding of intestinal motility and the interconnectivity among the enteric nervous system (“the brain in the gut”), extrinsic sensory neurons, and autonomic neurons is still in its infancy. Therefore, I use combination of optogenetic techniques to 1) map out the functional circuitry of neuronal and non-neuronal cells of the enteric nervous system, and 2) understand how extrinsic sensory neurons modulate activity in these enteric subpopulations.

TEAM