San Francisco State University
San Francisco, CA
Dr. Robyn Crook is an Associate Professor of Biology at San Francisco State University, a Primarily Undergraduate and Hispanic Serving Institution in San Francisco, CA. She received her undergraduate degree in Zoology from the University of Melbourne, Australia, then obtained a Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution and Behavior from the City University of New York, studying the evolution of learning and memory in the ancestral cephalopod, Nautilus. Her postdoctoral work with at the University of Texas Medical School, Houston, focused on neural mechanisms of chronic pain and spinal cord plasticity after injury, along with the first studies of nociceptive plasticity in cephalopods.
Research in her laboratory at SFSU is guided by the overarching question of how shared selection pressures drive the evolution of similar patterns of neural plasticity in phylogenetically distant species. Using cephalopod molluscs – an invertebrate lineage that independently evolved brain and behavioral complexity comparable to those of mammals – her lab’s research focuses on conserved mechanisms of adaptive, injury-induced sensitization, with a particular emphasis on the brain in its natural ecological context. Her work has produced novel findings on the adaptive value of chronic pain, the role of painful early-life experience in modulating ecologically-relevant adult behaviors, and the evolution of affective state, sentience and subjective experience in invertebrates. Her studies on the comparative neurobiology of pain have also made her a world leader in the field of invertebrate animal welfare, which continues to have wide-ranging impacts on legislative efforts to regulate the use of invertebrates in research. She is currently an Allen Distinguished Investigator and an NSF CAREER awardee.
A12 - Welfare Considerations for Cephalopods
Monday, November 18, 2024
10:30 AM – 11:45 AM PT