Although molecular approaches have allowed previously unimaginable rates of progress in explaining physiological phenomena during the past decade, many questions still rely upon an understanding of how systems function and interact in the whole animal. Integrative Physiology seeks to study these processes in a context that is more than the sum of its individual molecular, electrophysiological, and cellular parts. Through a variety of functional and imaging based approaches, several researchers within the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics are using integrative approaches to promote a more complete understanding of normal physiology and mechanisms underlying disease.

For example, several researchers have focused upon various aspects of cardiovascular physiology and the etiology of hypertension. The faulty regulation of blood pressure resulting in clinical hypertension is one of the most common maladies of modern society and is a major risk factor for more severe cardiovascular anomalies. Blood pressure regulation relies upon responsive interactions between a number of physiological systems including the cardiovascular, nervous, respiratory and renal organ systems. Departmental researchers are striving to understand how blood pressure is regulated at both the molecular and physiological level with the aim of devising practical ways to prevent or treat clinical hypertension. Studies underway include examination of the function of baroreceptor neurons and the role of mechanosensitive ion channels in blood pressure regulation as well as the neural control of renal function. Other laboratories are studying the role of the renin-angiotensin system in clinical hypertension by constructing useful models of cardiovascular disease using transgenic and gene targeted mice.

In analogous studies, other Departmental researchers are using integrative approaches to study the physiology of a host of other important traits , including: the fluid dynamics of the eye, tumor biology of the prostate, events of migraine headache, response of neurons to protons, and many other important phenomena.

Integrative Physiology Faculty