Bruce Appel, Ph.D.

Dr. Appel’s research focuses on understanding how oligodendrocytes, which are glial cells of the central nervous system, form specific amounts of myelin on select axons during development. Here, he will use zebrafish as a model system, which enables the use of combined time-lapse imaging with genetic and pharmacological manipulations to observe and test cell behaviors and myelination in an intact, living animal. The results of this research program have the potential to provide important new insights to the developmental basis of learning, memory and psychiatric disease and to provide a foundation for designing therapeutic strategies to promote myelination of brains damaged by disease or injury.