Department of
Psychological and Brain Sciences

• Behavioral Neural Science
• Animal Learning and Behavior

• Cellular and molecular mechanisms of learning and memory
• Neurobiology of behavior
• Excitable membranes/ion channels
• Neurobiology of nicotine abuse and addiction
• Molecular bases of signal transduction
• Computational models of neuronal excitability

Dr. Farley studies the cellular and molecular bases of behavioral and neural plasticity, particularly those which involve changes in the biophysical properties of excitable membranes. Using voltage- and patch-clamp recording techniques with native neuronal membranes and artificial bilayers, as well as site-directed mutagenesis studies of cloned ion channel subunits in heterologous expression systems (e.g., Xenopus oocytes), he studies the cellular and molecular bases of associative learning in invertebrates and cellular models of memory (e.g., LTP) in the mammalian brain. Changes in potassium and calcium ion channels, their contributions to cellular mechanisms of coincidence- and non-coincidence detection, and the molecular mechanisms underlying those changes, such as protein kinase C-, PKA, tyrosine kinase-, and phosphatase-dependent (PP1, PP2B) changes in channel activities are of current interest.

2004 - Chemosensory conditioning in molluses II: A critical review. Learning & Behavior.

2001 - PP1 inhibitors depolarize Hermissenda photoreceptors and reduce K+ currents. Journal of Neurophysiology, 86, 1297-1311.

1999 - Behavioral and neural bases of non-coincidence learning in Hermissenda. Journal of Neuroscience, 19, 9126-9132.