Volker E. Neugebauer, M.D., Ph.D

Associate Professor

Member, Marine Biomedical Institute;

Affiliations: Department of Anatomy & Neurosciences

research interests

The long-term goal of Dr. Neugebauer’s research is to understand the roles of neurotransmitters and -modulators in normal brain functions and the changes that occur in certain nervous system disorders, particularly chronic pain, which has a strong emotional dimension. Dr. Neugebauer’s lab studies pain mechanisms and associated neuroplastic changes in a particular brain area, the amygdala, which is part of the limbic system and plays a key role in emotionality. Research into pain mechanisms and neuroplasticity is currently focused on the role of the metabotropic glutamate receptors, a relatively novel class of neurotransmitter receptors that appear to be critically involved in the transition from normal to abnormal brain functions and in the various aspects of pain, e.g., emotional versus sensory-discriminative. Glutamate is a major neurotransmitter in the nervous system. The term “metabotropic” refers to the fundamental and long-lasting synaptic and cellular events that are triggered by the activation of these G-protein coupled receptors. Various electrophysiological and pharmacological in vivo and in vitro techniques are being applied to analyze synaptic and cellular pain mechanisms and how to prevent or reverse these events by drugs that selectively target certain neurotransmitter receptor subtypes. It is hoped that these studies will not only lead to novel and improved treatments of nervous system disorders but also enhance our understanding of neuronal mechanisms that are critical for cognitive processes and emotionality.

Biographical Information

Dr. Neugebauer is a native of Germany. An M.D.-Ph.D. student at the University of Würzburg, Germany, he received his medical degree in 1991 and a Ph.D. in Physiology in 1992. His dissertation research on spinal mechanisms of arthritic pain earned him the First Award of the Lower Franconia Memorial Endowment Fund for Science. After a year of internship and residency in Neurology at the University of Würzburg, Dr. Neugebauer returned to his neuroscience research. As a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Physiology at the University of Würzburg he applied electrophysiological techniques in vivo to analyze the spinal pharmacology of persistent inflammatory pain. In 1995, Dr. Neugebauer received the Pain Research Award of the German Pain Society (IASP Chapter) and a Research Career Development Award from the German Research Council (DFG).

Dr. Neugebauer came to UTMB in 1995. Under Dr. Patricia Shinnick-Gallagher in the Department of Pharmacology, he learned electrophysiological in vitro techniques (patch-clamp) to study pharmacological mechanisms of epileptogenesis and drug addiction in the limbic system. Dr. Neugebauer joined the Marine Biomedical Institute in 1997 and worked under Dr. William D. Willis on mechanisms of pain-evoked central sensitization of spinothalamic tract neurons. In 1998, Dr. Neugebauer became Assistant Professor (non-tenure track) in the Department of Anatomy & Neurosciences and received a grant from the John Sealy Memorial Endowment Fund for Biomedical Research to support his research on pain mechanisms in the amygdala. In 1999, he was awarded an NIH/NINDS R01 grant to study, in vivo and in vitro, electrophysiological and pharmacological mechanisms of persistent pain in the amygdala. Dr. Neugebauer presently holds a tenure-track faculty appointment as Assistant Professor in the Department of Anatomy & Neurosciences and is Member of the Marine Biomedical Institute.