Jonathan Funke, B.S.

After graduating with a Bachelors degree in psychology, I researched the effect of forced withdrawal from psychostimulants on excitatory synapses in the nucleus accumbens. Currently, I am utilizing a multimodal approach to investigate the nature of synaptic dysfunction in various heterogeneous neuromuscular diseases. These disorders, including Charcot-Marie Tooth and Infantile Neuroaxonal Dystrophy, result in a neurodegenerative phenotype with mitochondrial implications in causative disease mutations. The goal of my research is to link these gene functions of mitochondrial-associated peripheral neuropathy to neuromuscular junction dysfunction, as well as to uncover the cellular mechanisms behind said deficits.