Molecular Neuroscience Section - Division of Intramural Research

 Harold   Gainer  Ph.D., Senior Investigator

Dr. Gainer obtained his B.S. in Chemistry from the City College of New York, and his Ph.D. in Physiology and Biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. After a brief period as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Berkeley and as an Instructor in Physiology at UCSF, Dr. Gainer did further postdoctoral work on the electrophysiology of muscle and synapses at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. Dr. Gainer moved to a faculty position at the University of Maryland where his research focused on mechanisms of sound production in marine animals and on the role of calcium in excitation-contraction coupling. He has been an adjunct/visiting professor at the University of Maryland, George Washington University and Tel-Aviv University, Israel, and a summer investigator at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole. In 1969, Dr. Gainer joined the NIH, NICHD as a Research Physiologist,and later became Chief of the Laboratory of Neurochemistry and Immunology in NICHD. In 1987 he moved to the NINDS to become Chief of the Laboratory of Neurochemistry,and also served as Basic Neuroscience Director in intramural NINDS from1990 2000. Dr. Gainer's laboratory studies the cell biology of oxytocin andvasopressin peptidergic neurons in the mammalian hypothalamus.

Laboratory Staff

Todd  Ponzio, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow
Raymond Fields, B.S., Research Assistant
Shirley House, B.A., Research Assistant
Makoto  Kawasaki, M.D., Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow
Chunmei Yue, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow

Research Interests

The research program of the Molecular Neurosciences Section is concerned with the elucidation of mechanisms that are involved in the establishment and maintenance of specific peptidergic neuronal phenotypes in the central nervous system. Specifically we focus on the cell biological and molecular processes that underlie cell-specific expression of oxytocin and vasopressin genes , and the biosynthesis, sorting, packaging and neurosecretion of the resulting neuropeptides in the hypothalamus. In order to systematically examine these issues, we study two specific neural systems: 1) the magnocellular neurons (MCNs) of the mammalian hypothalamo- neurohypophysial system , which secrete the nonapeptides, oxytocin (OT) and vasopressin (VP) into the general circulation, and 2) and neurons in the suprachiasmatic nucleus which secrete VP in a circadian fashion into specific hypothalamic sites..

Selected Recent Publications

Rusnak, M.,Tòth, Z.E., House, S.B., and Gainer, H
Depolarization and neurotransmitter regulation of vasopressin gene expression in the rat suprachiasmatic nucleus in vitro - J. Neuroscience  27 141-151 2007

Mutsuga, N., Shahar, T, Verbalis, JG,. Brownstein, MJ, Xiang, CC, and Gainer,H.
Regulation of Gene Expression in Magnocellular Neurons in rat supraoptic nucleus during sustained Hypoosmolality - Endocrinology  146 1254-1267 2005

Shahar, T, House, S.B., and Gainer, H
Neural activity protects hypothalamic magnocellular neurons against axotomy-induced programmed cell death. - J. Neuroscience  24 6553-6562 2004

Mutsuga,N., Shahar, T, Verbalis, JG,. Brownstein, MJ, Xiang, CC, Bonner, RF and Gainer,H
Selective gene expression in magnocellular neurons in rat supraoptic nucleus. - J. Neuroscience  24 7174-7185 2004

Fields, R.L., House, S. B., and Gainer, H
Regulatory domains in the intergenic region of the oxytocin and vasopressin genes that control their hypothalamus-specific expression in vitro. - J. Neuroscience  23 7801-7809 2003

Young, WS III & Gainer,H
Transgenesis and the study of expression, cellular targeting and function of oxytocin, vasopressin and their receptors. - Neuroendocrinology  78(4) 185-203 2003

Selected Earlier Publications

Contact Information

Molecular Neuroscience Section Laboratory of Neurochemistry, NINDS  9000 Rockville Pike  Building 49, Room 5A78, MSC 4479 Bethesda MD  20892-4479

Telephone: 301-496- 1671 (office), 301- 496-6719 (laboratory), 301-496- 1339 (fax), Email: gainerh@ninds.nih.gov