Professor Diana W. Verzi
Department of Mathematics
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Vitae
Research Area: Mathematical Physiology
Crawling
of animal cells across surfaces
A simple 1D model of crawling nematode sperm cell. Journal of Statistical Physics March 2003
The geometry and motion of nematode sperm cells.
J. Cell Motility and Cytoskeleton, accepted
March 2009
Current research is
aimed at dissecting the complex processes of how cells move across surfaces
into simpler phenomena that can be more easily analyzed. Phenomenological models, based on
conservation laws, have been formulated and solved numerically and
analytically.
Interdependent changes in neuroanatomy and activity
associated with learning and memory.
Activity-dependent synapse restructuring. Bulletin of Mathematical Biology June 2004.
Calcium mediated spine stem restructuring. J. Math and Computer Modeling 2005.
Activity-dependent dendritic spine branching. Accepted Jan 2009, Bulletin of Mathematical Biology.
Current research is
aimed at dissecting the relationship between electrical/chemical activity and
structure in hippocampal dendritic arbors.
Experimenters draw diagrammatic models to try to explain the dynamics of
slow structural change and rapid changes in activity. We formulate mathematical
descriptions for these models.