Research
Each strand shares a method: trace what a toxicant, a nutrient, or development itself does to nervous tissue, then test whether the damage can be stopped or reversed.
Focus Areas
Chronic exposure to vanadium and heavy metals — brain metal distribution, demyelination, and neuroinflammation across generations. This work asks how much of a given exposure the brain accumulates, where it lodges, and what it costs the animal behaviourally.
Plant-derived and synthetic compounds tested against oxidative and toxicant-induced injury via Nrf2/HO-1, NF-κB and Bax/Bcl-2/Caspase-3 pathways. The lab has also tested ZA-II-05, a novel NMDA-receptor antagonist, against vanadium neurotoxicity in hippocampal slices and mice.
Histology and immunohistochemistry of the visual, olfactory and limbic systems in squirrels, bats, owls and African giant rats — species chosen because their sensory adaptations expose principles a single lab model cannot.
Hormonal and testicular consequences of toxicant exposure, bridging neuroscience with theriogenology through work on the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis.
How We Work
Fixed-tissue sectioning and staining across brain regions and species, used to score neuronal density, demyelination, and markers of oxidative and inflammatory injury.
Spatial learning and memory assays (including in juvenile hydrocephalic models) used to link histological damage or protection back to whole-animal function.
Tissue-level measurement of vanadium and heavy-metal accumulation in brain, liver and kidney, at both low and high dose, to map where a toxicant settles and what it damages on the way.
Testosterone, LH and FSH profiling alongside Nrf2/HO-1, NF-κB and Bax/Bcl-2/Caspase-3 pathway markers, connecting endocrine outcomes to the molecular route of injury or protection.
In the Lab
Every dataset above starts here — slides under the scope, samples logged one tube at a time, and a team that shares the bench.
Species Studied
Each species is chosen for a specific adaptation or a specific vulnerability. A squirrel's visual system tells a different story than a rat's hippocampus; put side by side, they say more than either could alone.
Vanadium neurobehavioural, histological and hippocampal-slice studies.
Chronic vanadium exposure and protein-aggregation studies; juvenile hydrocephalus and memory.
Heliosciurus gambianus — ocular and neuroanatomical adaptation to arboreal life.
Gross morphometry and histomorphology of brain and testes, alongside the Gambian Sun squirrel.
Comparative craniometric work alongside Nigeria's other tree squirrel species.
Comparative and developmental neuroanatomy of an indigenous rodent model.
Comparative neuroanatomy of an echolocating, nocturnal sensory system.
Visual-system neuroanatomy in a nocturnal avian predator.
