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Spacer PATRICIA E. SHARP Spacer
 
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Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT OF PHYCHOLOGY
Bowling Green State University
Ph.D.,University of Colorado.

 
PHONE
(419) 372-8059
Email
psharp@ bgnet.bgsu.edu
OFFICE

235 Psychology


 


Research Interests:

My research is aimed at the investigation of the biological basis of animal navigation. Animals, including humans, must routinely leave their home to go out in search of needed resources, such as food, water, etc. As they travel in search of these items, they may cover a broad range of territory, and may sometimes travel into previously unvisited regions. It is believed that as animals make these repeated journeys, they gradually develop an abstract, map-like representation of this larger environment which can be used to plan routes through it, from any one location to another. We are interested in this behavior because it constitutes a complex cognitive ability, and yet is demonstrated by numerous species throughout the animal kingdom. Work in my laboratory and others has shown that there are cells in certain specialized brain regions which code for the animal's momentary directional heading and location in space. These cells are believed to form the basis for part of the cognitive map postulated above. Much of the work in my laboratory is aimed at trying to understand how these directional and locational signals are generated. Future work will focus on how the map is utilized to guide navigational behavior.


Selected Publications:

Sharp PE, James JH, Wagner AR (1980) Habituation of a “blocked” stimulus during Pavlovian Conditioning.  Bulletin of Psychonomic Society, 15, 139-142.

Sharp PE, McNaughton BL, Barnes CA (1985) Enhancement of hippocampal field potentials in rats exposed to a novel, complex environment.  Brain Research, 339, 361-365.

Sharp PE, Barnes CA, McNaughton BL (1987)  Effects of aging on environmental modulation of hippocampal evoked responses.  Behavioral Neuroscience, 101, 170-178.

Sharp PE, McNaughton BL, Barnes CA (1989)  Exploration-dependent modulation of evoked responses in fascia dentata: Fundamental observations and time course.  Psychobiology, 17, 257-269.

Sharp PE, Kubie JL, Muller RU (1990) Firing properties of hippocampal neurons in a visually-symmetrical environment: contributions of multiple sensory cues and mnemonic processes.  Journal of Neuroscience, 10, 3093-3105.

Sharp PE (1991)  Computer simulation of hippocampal place cells.  Psychobiology, 19, 103-115.
McNaughton BL, Barnes CA, Mizumori SYJ, Green EJ, Sharp PE (1991) The contribution of granule cells to spatial representation in hippocampal circuits: a puzzle.  In F. Morrell (Ed.) Kindling and Synaptic Plasticity: the Legacy of Graham Goddard. Birkhauser-Boston (Springer-Verlag), Boston.

Croll SD, Sharp PE, Bostock E (1992) Evidence for NMDA receptor involvement in environmentally induced dentate gyrus plasticity.  Hippocampus, 2, 23-28.
Sharp PE (1993)  The role of the hippocampus in learning and memory.  In T Ono, LR Squire, RE Raichle, D Perret, M Fukuda  (Eds.)  Brain Mechanisms of Perception and Memory:  From Neuron to Behavior.  Oxford University Press, London.

Sharp PE, Green C (1994) Spatial correlates of firing patterns of single cells in the subiculum of the freely-moving rat.  Journal of Neuroscience, 14, 2339-2356.

Sharp PE, Blair HT, Etkin D, Tzanetos DB (1995) Influences of vestibular and visual motion information on the spatial firing patterns of hippocampal place cells.  Journal of Neuroscience, 15, 173-189.

Brown MA, Sharp PE (1995) Simulation of spatial learning in the Morris Water Maze by a neural network model of the hippocampal formation and nucleus accumbens.  Hippocampus, 5, 171-188.

Blair HT, Sharp PE (1995) Anticipatory head direction signals in the anterior thalamus: Evidence for a thalamocortical circuit that integrates angular head velocity to compute head direction.  Journal of Neuroscience, 15, 6260-6270.

Sharp PE (1996)  Multiple spatial/behavioral correlates for cells in the rat postsubiculum: Multiple regression analysis and comparison to other hippocampal areas.  Cerebral Cortex, 6, 238-259.

Blair HT, Sharp PE (1996)  Visual and vestibular influences on head direction cells in the anterior thalamus of the rat.  Behavioral Neuroscience, 110, 1-18.

Sharp PE, Blair HT, Brown MA (1996) Neural network modeling of the hippocampal formation signals and their possible role in navigation: A modular approach.  Hippocampus, 6, 720-734.

Sharp PE (1997) Subicular cells generate similar spatial firing patterns in two geometrically and visually distinctive environments; comparison with hippocampal place cells.  Behavioral Brain Research, 85, 71-92.
Blair HT, Lipscome BW, Sharp PE (1997) Anticipatory time intervals of head-direction cells in the anterior thalamus of the rat: Implications for path integration in the head-direction cell circuit.  Journal of Neurophysiology, 78, 145-159.

Blair HT, Cho J, Sharp PE (1998)  Role of the lateral mammillary nucleus in the rat head direction circuit: A combined single-unit recording and lesion study.  Neuron, 21, 1387-1397.
Blair HT, Sharp PE, Cho J, Goodridge JP, Stackman RW, Golob EJ, Taube J (1998) Path integration in the rat head-direction circuit.  In JM Bower (Ed.) Computational Neuroscience: Trends in Research, New York: Plenum.

Sharp PE (1999) Comparison of the timing of hippocampal and subicular spatial signals: Implications for path integration. Hippocampus, 9,158-172.

Sharp PE (1999) Complimentary roles for hippocampal versus subicular/entorhinal place cells in coding place, context, and events. Hippocampus, 9, 432-443.

Sharp PE (1999) Subicular place cells expand/contract their spatial firing patterns to fit the size of the environment in an open field, but not in the presence of barriers: Comparison with hippocampal place cells. Behavioral Neuroscience, 113, 643-662.

Blair HT, Cho J, Sharp PE (1999) The anterior thalamic head direction signal is abolished by bilateral but not unilateral lesions of the lateral mammillary nucleus. Journal of Neuroscience, 19, 6673-6683.

Sharp PE (1999) Animal Navigation: Neuronal Processes.  In Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences. MIT Press; Cambridge, MA.

Cho J, Sharp PE (2001) Head direction, place, and movement correlates for single cells in the rat retrosplenial cortex.  Behavioral Neuroscience, 115, 3-25.

Sharp PE, Tinkelman A, Cho J  (2001)  Angular velocity and head direction signals recorded from the dorsal tegmental nucleus of Gudden in the rat; implications for path integration in the Head Direction Cell circuit.  Behavioral Neuroscience, 115, 571-588.

Sharp PE, Blair HT, Cho J (2001) The anatomical and computational basis of the Head Direction cell signal in the rat.  Trends in Neuroscience, 24, 289-294.

Sharp PE (2001) Navigation in spatial environments, neural basis of. In:  International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (McClelland JL & Thompson R, Ed.s) Elsevier Press, Oxford.

Sharp PE.  (2001)  Subicular place cells show similar firing fields across different environments: Comparison with hippocampal place cells.  In The Neural Basis of Navigation: Evidence from Single Cell Recording. Sharp PE (Editor)  Kluwer Academic Publishers.  Norwell, MA.  (2001)

Blair HT, Sharp PE  (2001)  Functional organization of the rat head direction circuit. In The Neural Basis of Navigation: Evidence from Single Cell Recording. Sharp PE (Editor)  Kluwer Academic Publishers.  Norwell, MA.  (2001)

Sharp PE (Editor) The Neural Basis of Navigation: Evidence from Single Cell Recording. Kluwer Academic Publishers.  Norwell, MA, 2001.

Sharp PE, Turner-Williams S, Tuttle S (2005) Movement-related correlates of single cell activity in the interpeduncular nucleus and habenula of the rat during a pellet-chasing task.  Behavioural Brain Research, 166, 55-70.

Sharp PE, Turner-Williams, S (2005) Movement-related correlates of single cell activity in the medial mammillary nucleus of the rat during a pellet-chasing task.  Journal of Neurophysiology, 94, 1920-07.

Sharp PE (2005) Regional distribution and variation in the firing properties of Head Direction cells.  In Head Direction Cells and the Neural Mechanisms Underlying Directional Orientation. Taube JS And Wiener SI (Ed.s) MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Sharp PE (In Press) Subicular place cells generate the same “map” for different environments: comparison with hippocampal cells.  Behavioural Brain Research.

Bingman VP, Sharp PE (In Press) Neuronal implementation of hippocampal-mediated spatial behavior: A comparative-evolutionary perspective.  Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews.


Courses Taught:

  • PSYC 320. Conditioning
  • PSYC 781. Neurobiology/Spatial Navigation
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