Rebecca Hood/Portland VA Medical Center
Rebecca Hood is a Research Assistant with the Portland VA Medical Center at Oregon Health & Science University. Her duties include: studying potential Parkinson’s therapies in a progressive mouse model of Parkinson’s disease in both young and aged mice; performing motor behavioral testing of mice to evaluate efficacy of treatments; using immunohistochemical techniques and stereological cell counting to measure neurodegeneration; measuring neurotransmitter enzyme, neurotransmitter transporter, and neurotrophic factor expression by immunoblotting; utilizing genetic mouse models to study possible risk factors of Parkinson’s disease; developing diolistic labeling technique of medium spiny neurons to assess dendritic spine density.
Rebecca earned her bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and a certificate in Biopsychology from Georgia Institute of Technology.