Terunaga Nakagawa, M.D, Ph.D.

In humans, dysfunction of iGluRs is related to a variety of neurological and psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, ALS, intellectual disability, brain tumor, seizure, limbic encephalitis, CNS lupus, and Rasmussen’s encephalitis. Understanding the precise molecular basis for iGluR function is expected to facilitate identification of new therapeutic targets and compounds that could control iGluR functions in disease conditions. We focus to provide structural and biophysical basis for the signaling mediated by the iGluRs. Most of our current research is on the AMPA-subtype of iGluRs (AMPA receptors, or AMPARs), which mediates most of the excitatory synaptic transmission in mammalian brain.