About Me

I am a primate neuroanatomist with over 25 years of experience, the last 12 of which have been focused on in vivo imaging of the nonhuman primate (NHP) brain. As PI, I have been responsible for developing and implementing neuroimaging modalities specific to nonhuman primates at Wake Forest Health Sciences including magnetoencephalography (MEG) and was among the first to apply MEG to record brain activity in NHPs. We have established the methods and necessary infrastructure for conducting the proposed studies. I have assembled a team with the necessary expertise to successfully complete the proposed MEG studies. I was one of the first to publish a description of MEG imaging in rhesus monkeys (Wilson et al., 2009) and mine is the only group currently using MEG to identify alcohol related changes to brain function in monkeys. I was also the first investigator to describe neural networks in the vervet monkey brain using fMRI (Telesford et al., 2013) and to describe how chronic ethanol alters brain networks (Telesford et al., 2015) and significantly reduced resting state brain activity (Rowland et al., 2017a). As co-Investigator, I was responsible for developing methods for conducting [18F]-FDG imaging in conscious NHPs that were performing a complex behavioral task (Porrino et al., 2005).

Educational Program Involvement  

Integrative Physiology and Pharmacology PhD
Program Research Interest: Drug and Alcohol Abuse, Cardiovascular Physiology and Hypertension, Regenerative Medicine, Neuro- and Behavioral Pharmacology, Cancer Therapeutics Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism Lifespan Physiology.

Graduate Programs in Neuroscience
Program Research Interest: Addiction and Substance Abuse, Behavioral and Systems Neurobiology, Development and Plasticity, Molecular Neurobiology, Neurological Disease and Aging, Neuropharmacology, Sensory Neurobiology

Research Training Grants 

Alcohol Training Grant - In vivo and in vitro neuroimaging methods, structural/functional consequences of substance abuse.