
Dr. Demetrio Sierra came to the UPR Medical Sciences Campus from the Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard University in 2014. As a graduate student at Ponce School of Medicine, he explored the biological markers of emotional regulation using a rodent model of Pavlovian fear conditioning and extinction. He demonstrated that fear regulation requires an interaction between the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala. As a postdoc at Harvard, Sierra extended his training to the non-human primate (NHP) in a study of avoidance and reward seeking. He also extended his graduate work on fear and extinction learning to a rodent model of Traumatic Brain Injury, which is thought to be a risk factor for development of anxiety disorders. He is therefore exceptionally well prepared to undertake the current study that examines relationships between TBI and PTSD.
Education
- Postdoc, Neuropharmacology and Neurophysiology, Columbia University, New York, NY
- Ph.D., Biochemistry, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, San Juan, P.R.
- B.S., Chemistry, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, San Juan, P.R.
Research Interests
- Neuronal Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor
- Monoamine Transporters and Receptors
- Amphetamine-type Psychostimulants
- Parkinson Disease and L-DOPA-induced Dyskinesia
- Electrophysiology and Electrochemistry
- Confocal and Two-photon Microscopy
- Time-correlated Single Photon Counting
- Molecular & Cell Biology
- Behavioral Paradigms