Samantha Rushforth

PhD Student (sponsored by Johnson and Johnson, Belgium)

Primary Supervisor: Mohammed Shoaib
Research group: Psychobiology

  • Email: s.l.rushforth@ncl.ac.uk
  • Telephone: +44(0)191 222 5529
  • Address:
    Institute of Neuroscience
    Framlington Place, Newcastle University
    Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4HF

Introduction and area of work:

I graduated from Newcastle University with an 2:1 in Pharmacology in 2007. I then spent a year working at GlaxoSmithKline under David Bulmer, developing both in-vivo and in-vitro models of pain in irritable bowel syndrome. I am now in the first year of my PhD, working with Mohammed Shoaib in the Comparative Biology Centre to investigate the use of ketamine in a rodent memory task as a model of cognitive deficits in Schizophrenia. I am also looking at the role of nicotine and nicotinic receptors in mediating restoration of these deficits.

Additional roles:

PG rep for IoN
Postgraduate Conference Organisers Committee Member 2009
Supervisor for 3rd year undergraduate project student.

Qualifications:

BSc. Pharmacology; 2:1

Techniques:

Ex-vivo electrophysiology
Cellular based assays; ELISA/ MSD
Behavioural models; odour span task

Awards and bursaries:

British Association for Psychopharmacology Undergraduate Abstract Award 2007

Publications and conferences:

S. L. Rushforth, C. Allison, M. Shoaib, (in press);
Nicotinic Agonists Enhance Olfactory Working Memory in Normal Rats: A Novel Use of the Odour Span Task.

S.L. Rushforth, C. Allison and M. Shoaib
British Association for Psychopharmacology Annual Meeting, Harrogate, July 2007;
Nicotinic Agonists Enhance Olfactory Working Memory in Normal Rats: A Novel Use of the Odour Span Task.

S. J. Wonnacott, S.L. Rushforth, C. Allison, S. Jayaraman, M. Shoaib
Annual Meeting for the Society of Neurocience, San Diego, November 2007
Profiling beta2* and alpha7 nicotinic receptor ligands in a cognitive task involving working memory and its relationship to extracellular release of dopamine in the prefrontal cortex of rats.

S. L. Rushforth, T.A. Steckler, M. Shoaib
Society of Biological Psychiatry Annual Meeting, May 2009
Nicotine restores cognitive impairments following sub-chronic ketamine exposure in a rodent odour span task.