Joshua A. Burk

College of William & Mary
Department of Psychology
231 Millington Hall
Williamsburg, VA 23187

jabur2@wm.edu
757-221-3882 (office)
757-221-3896 (FAX)

Faculty Positions:

2008-current Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, College of William and Mary

2002-2008 Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, College of William & Mary 

Education:

May 1999, Ph.D.      Experimental Psychology, University of New Hampshire

May 1999, M.S.T.     College Teaching, University of New Hampshire

June 1996, M.A.       Experimental Psychology, University of New Hampshire

June 1993, B. S.      Psychology (Biological Emphasis), University of California, Davis

Research:

Previous Research Experience

2001-2002 Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Psychology, Ohio State University

1999-2001 Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Psychology, Ohio State University

1994-1999 Research/Teaching Assistant, Department of Psychology, University of New Hampshire

Research Interests
My general area of research interest is the neural basis of attention, learning, and memory. Recent experiments in our laboratory have provided evidence that the prefrontal cortex and posterior parietal cortex contribute critically to attentional processing, findings consistent with the literature. Moreover, we have begun to assess the contributions of some neurotransmitter systems, including cholinergic, dopaminergic and glutamatergic systems, to attentional performance. Our future projects will attempt to understand how these (and other) neurotransmitter systems interact within the prefrontal and posterior parietal cortex to mediate attentional processing. We are also interested in how dysfunction of these neurotransmitter systems contributes to attentional deficits in neuropsychiatric diseases including Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia.

Recent Publications

· Kondrad RL, Burk JA (2004) Transient disruption of attentional performance following escalating amphetamine administration in rats. Psychopharmacology, 175, 436-442.

· Burk JA (2004) Introduction of a retention interval in a sustained attention task in rats: effects of presenting a visual distracter and increasing the inter-trial interval. Behavioural Processes, 67, 521-531.

· Yttri EA, Burk JA, Hunt PS (2004) Intermittent ethanol exposure in adolescent rats: dose-dependent impairment in trace conditioning. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 28, 1433-1436.

· Echevarria DJ, Brewer A, Burk JA, Brown SN, Manuzon H, Robinson JK (2005) Construct validity of an operant signal detection task for rats. Behavioural Brain Research, 157, 283-290.

· Woolfrey KM, Musisca NJ, Hunt PS, Burk JA (2005) Early postnatal ethanol administration does not affect prepulse inhibition. Physiology & Behavior, 84, 747-752.

· Newman LA, Burk JA (2005) Effects of excitotoxic thalamic intralaminar nuclei lesions on attention and working memory. Behavioural Brain Research, 162, 264-271.

· Woolfrey KM, Hunt PS, Burk JA (2005) Postnatal ethanol exposure disrupts signal detection in adult rats. Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 27, 815-823.

· Johnson RT, Burk JA (2006) Effects of gonadectomy and androgen supplementation on attention in male rats. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 85, 219-227.

· McQuail JA, Burk JA (2006) Evaluation of muscarinic and nicotinic receptor antagonists on attention and working memory. Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior, 85, 796-803.

· Howe WM, Burk JA (2007) Dizocilpine-induced accuracy deficits in a visual signal detection task are not present following D-cycloserine administration. European Journal of Pharmacology, 577, 87-90.

· List of all publications prior to 2004

Courses

Fall 2008 – on sabbatical