• Gryphon Login
  • MyCourses
  • Alumni
  • UCLA Health
  • Contact Us
Prospective Students

Prospective Students

Prospective Students
  • Admissions
    Procedure & Timelines
    • Admissions Timeline
    • Admissions Procedure
    • Basis of Selection
    • COVID-19 Impacts on Admissions
    • Housing Information
    • Interview Process
    • Prerequisites
    General Information
    • Statement of Diversity
    • Mission Statement
    • Curriculum Resdesign
    • Honor Code
    • FAQs
    • Admissions Brochure
    • Admissions Timeline
    • Admission Procedure
    • Basis of Selection
    • Competencies
    • COVID-19 Impact on Admissions
    • DACA Applicants
    • DGSOM Mission Statement
    • FAQs
    • Honor Code
    • Housing Information
    • Interview Process
    • Statement of Diversity
    • Virtual Events
  • Outreach & Pipeline Programs
    Summer Pre-Health and Postbaccaluareate Programs
    • UCLA SHPEP
    • UCLA PREP
    • UCLA RAP
    Outreach and Recruitment
    • Conferences and Events
    • Stay Connected!
    • Contact Us
    • Conferences & Outreach Events
    • Summer Pre-Health and Postbaccalaureate Programs
    • Contact Us
    • Stay Connected
  • Financial Aid & Scholarships
  • Degrees & Programs
  • Curriculum
  • Student Life
    Why Choose UCLA
    • Research
    • Clinical Work
    • Service Opportunities
    • Global Health Impact
    • Why You'll Love LA
    Campus Life
    • Student Organizations
    • Annual Events
    • Day in the Life
    • Around Campus
    • Photo Galleries
    • Medical and Research News
    • Medical Student Council
    • Geffy Guide
    • Search Campus and Health News
    • Service Opportunities
    • Global Health Impact
    • Why You'll Love LA
    • Photo Galleries
    • Day in the Life
    • Around Campus
    • Medical and Research News
    • Search Campus and Health News
  • How to Apply
  • Gryphon Login
  • MyCourses
  • Alumni
  • UCLA Health
  • Contact Us

Prospective Students

Search Campus and Health News

Search Campus and Health News

Search Campus and Health News

  • Health News
  • A Day in the Life
  • Around Campus
  • Medical and Research News
  • Health News
  • A Day in the Life
  • Around Campus
  • Medical and Research News
  1. Home
  2. Prospective Students
  3. Student Life
  4. Search Campus and Health News

Search Campus and Health News

Share this

Day in the Life

Title

What is neurobiology? UCLA neuroendocrinologist Paul Micevych explains

Day in the Life

Date
06/16/2018
Article
Dr. Paul E. Micevych, Ph.D. Dr. Paul E. Micevych, Ph.D.

Paul E. Micevych, PhD, who chairs the neurobiology department at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA (DGSOM), has a passion for research. 

While he was in college, a friend's father invited Dr. Micevych to visit his neurophysiology lab. "He got me hooked," Dr. Micevych says. "There's a type of person who gets infected by the research bug. Once that happens, it's very difficult to do anything else."

What is neurobiology?

Dr. Micevych says neurobiology is a broad field. "It's the biology of nerve cells and glial cells that make up the brain — how they fit together and make circuits, and how those circuits process information and regulate behavior, endocrine function, emotions, breathing, etc."

To better understand brain circuits, neurobiologists at UCLA use various techniques, from classical biochemical and immunochemical techniques to genetic and optogenetic techniques, to study cells in living animals."This gives us a better understanding than ever about how individual cells function within circuits and how this activity translates into a physiological or behavioral function," says Dr. Micevych. 

Reproductive Neuroendocrinology

Dr. Micevych's specialized reproductive neuroendocrinology studies focus on interactions between the brain and the ovaries and how those interactions regulate ovulation and reproductive behavior. He's isolated two hormones, estradiol and progesterone, that appear to play a key role in human health and reproductive health. 

"We've learned that estrogen and progesterone have rampant transmitter-like effects that influence a number of different behaviors, not just reproduction. We've looked at the ability of these hormones to regulate pain. My colleagues have looked at cognition in the hippocampus and cortex. And we've learned that progesterone and estrogen have neuroprotective effects."

Dr. Micevych says these findings could help extend women's reproductive lifespans and potentially lead to new hormone-based treatments for victims of stroke and other brain injuries.

Day in the life of a neurobiologist

As a distinguished professor and department chair, Dr. Micevych doesn't get to spend much hands-on time in his lab, but he devotes time each day to reviewing and understanding data generated by his postdoctoral fellows. 

"That is the most exciting and rewarding part of my day — thinking about what the data are telling us, taking experimental results we didn't expect and trying to figure out what it was we didn't understand when we planned the experiment, and then planning new experiments that will clarify how a particular cell or circuit is functioning."

Neurobiologists in Dr. Micevych's lab work with both live animals and cultured brain cells. "We try to tease out how estradiol and progesterone regulate cell signaling in vitro. Then we use that information, in vivo, to see how the cells work in the whole animal. If we see a different response than predicted, what is it that has modified the cell's behavior? It's a continuous circle of taking things apart, putting them in a dish, using that information in the whole animal, and back again. In the end, we have an accurate idea of how not only cells, but entire circuits, function to regulate physiology and behavior."

Makings of a neurobiologist

Being a good neurobiologist requires curiosity and a love of the brain, says Dr. Micevych. "It's the least understood and most exciting part of the universe, and we're only just scratching the surface. Two-and-a-half pounds of protoplasm allowed Shakespeare to write sonnets and allows Usain Bolt to run the 100-meter dash," he explains. "Both have the same cells, but somehow they function differently in different people to produce very different results."

Dr. Micevych adds that neurobiologists must also be comfortable having their most fundamental ideas shaken. For example, it was dogma for years that people are born with all the neurons they'll ever have. But we now know that the brain generates new neurons every day.

"Neurobiologists, and probably all researchers, just like to discover things — to be the first person to solve a puzzle of nature, to see something no one else has seen, "Dr. Micevych says. "Even if it's a very small, circumscribed behavior, we've understood how it works, and that's a thrill nothing can match. Even after a whole career doing this, the thing I enjoy most is science. I think if you ask most researchers, they will tell you they're the luckiest people on earth."

Like Us on Facebook Follow Us on Twitter Subscribe to Our Videos on YouTube Follow us on Instagram Connect with Us on LinkedIn Follow us on Pinterest Follow us on Flickr Follow us on Sharecare
Top 10 U.S. Medical Schools
  • Giving
  • Publications
  • Newsroom
  • Weekly Digest
  • Directory
  • Contact Us
  • Diversity
  • Emergency
  • Maps & Directions
  • UC Regents
  • Abuse Free
  • Volunteer
  • Biomed Library
  • Disability Resources
  • UCLA Health
  • Smoke-Free
  • Sitemap
  • Terms of Use
Top 10 U.S. Medical Schools
Like Us on Facebook Follow Us on Twitter Subscribe to Our Videos on YouTube Follow us on Instagram Connect with Us on LinkedIn Follow us on Pinterest Follow us on Flickr Follow us on Sharecare