Dr. Charles Lee

Prof. Charles C. Lee is currently a Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems in the Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences at the Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine. Previously, he was a Research Associate (Assistant Professor) in the Department of Neurobiology at the University of Chicago in the laboratory of Prof. S. Murray Sherman. He performed his graduate studies with the late Prof. Jeffery A. Winer at U.C. Berkeley. He completed his undergraduate training in chemistry at the California Institute of Technology. He also produces and hosts The Groks Science Show, a science radio program which is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The show is broadcast locally on WHYR 96.9 FM and syndicated nationally through the Public Radio Exchange (PRX). His laboratory studies neural principles governing the sensory and cognitive functions of the brain using the central auditory system as a model. The laboratory investigates the neural circuits and the physiological properties of sensory synapses in the midbrain, thalamus, and cortex by electrophysiological recording neurons in response to pharmacological activation, electrical stimulation, optogenetic manipulation, or photostimulation through the uncaging of glutamate. Morphological correlates are sought using neuroanatomical methods, such as anterograde and retrograde tract-tracing, cell-type specific viral tracers, and the intracellular filling of recorded neurons.