Sarah Pallas
Professor Faculty Biology, Neuroscience, Psychology- Education
Postdoc MIT
PhD Cornell Univ
MS Iowa State Univ
BS Univ Minn
- Specializations
Developmental neuroscience
Sensory neurophysiology
- Biography
Sarah Pallas received her B.S. degree in Biology, summa cum laude, from the University of Minnesota. After a year of post-baccalaureate research training, she obtained a M.S. degree in Zoology from Iowa State University, where she conducted neurophysiological research on earthworm escape behavior circuitry. For her Ph.D. she first studied developmental plasticity of the cricket auditory pathway under Ronald R. Hoy and then developmental plasticity of the mammalian visual pathway under Barbara L. Finlay, using neurophysiological and neuroanatomical approaches. Her postdoc was done at M.I.T. under Mriganka Sur in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences department. There she studied cross-modal plasticity in the ferret sensory cortex, under an NRSA fellowship from NIH/NEI. She took her first faculty position in 1992 in the Neuroscience Division at Baylor College of Medicine, then moved to Georgia State University as an Associate Professor in 1997. In 2001, she was nominated for the GSU Outstanding Faculty Achievement Award. She was promoted to Full Professor at GSU in 2006. In 2005 she received the NABT Evolution Education Award. In 2011, she was appointed as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS). Her research has been funded by NSF, NIH, the Whitehall Foundation, Fight for Sight, and the Deafness Foundation.
University Senate member, Faculty Affairs Committee member, Cultural Diversity committee of the University Senate (Chair);
Provost's Committee on the Advancement of Women
College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Awards Committee
Graduate Program Committee
Reviewing Editor, Frontiers in Neuroanatomy
Reviewing Editor, Frontiers in Neural Circuits
Reviewing Editor, Neural Plasticity (Hindawi)
Society for Neuroscience Governmental and Public Affairs Committee
- Publications
Balmer, TS, SL Pallas (2015) Visual experience prevents dysregulation of GABAB receptor-dependent short-term depression in adult superior colliculus. J Neurophysiol 113: 2049-2061. http://jn.physiology.org/content/113/7/2049
Balmer, T.S., S.L. Pallas (2015) Refinement but not maintenance of receptive fields in both superior colliculus and visual cortex is independent of visual experience. Cerebral Cortex 25:904-917. http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/25/4/904
Mao, Y.-T, S.L. Pallas (2013) Cross-modal plasticity results in increased inhibition in primary auditory cortical areas. Neural Plasticity Vol 2013, article ID 530651. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/530651
Tadesse, T., Q. Cheng, M. Xu, D.J. Baro, L.J. Young, S.L. Pallas (2013) Regulation of ephrin-A expression in compressed retinocollicular maps. Develop Neurobiol 73:274-296 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/dneu.22059/full
Mao, Y.-T, S.L. Pallas (2012) Compensation and compromise of auditory cortical function after invasion by visual inputs. J Neurosci 32:10338-10351. http://www.jneurosci.org/content/32/30/10338.long
Pallas, S.L., Y.-T. Mao (2012) The evolution of multisensory neocortex. In: Barry E. Stein (editor) New Handbook of Multisensory Processes. MIT Press Cambridge, MA
Mao, Y.-T, T.-M. Hua, S.L. Pallas (2011) Competition and convergence between auditory and cross-modal visual inputs to primary auditory cortical areas. J Neurophysiol 105:1558-1573. http://jn.physiology.org/content/105/4/1558.long
Carrasco, M.M., Y.-T. Mao, T. Balmer, S.L. Pallas (2011) Inhibitory plasticity underlies visual deprivation-induced loss of retinocollicular map refinement in adulthood. Eur J Neurosci 33:58-68. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1460-9568.2010.07478.x/full
Pallas, S.L., editor (2009) Developmental Plasticity of Inhibitory Circuitry. Springer-Verlag, New York.
Pallas, S.L. (2007) Compensatory innervation in development and evolution. In: J. Kaas (ed.), Evolution of Nervous Systems, Vol. 1, G.F. Striedter and J.L.R. Rubenstein (eds.): Theories, Development, and Invertebrates, pp 153-168. Elsevier Academic Press, Amsterdam. http://www2.gsu.edu/~bioslp/pdfs/Evo_Devo_Review.pdf
Carrasco, M.M., S.L. Pallas (2006) Early visual experience prevents but cannot reverse deprivation-induced loss of refinement in adulthood. Visual Neurosci 23:845-852. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17266776
Carrasco, M.M., K.A. Razak, S.L. Pallas (2005) Visual experience is necessary for maintenance but not development of refined retinotopic maps in superior colliculus. J Neurophysiol 94:1962-1970. http://jn.physiology.org/content/94/3/1962.long
Razak, K.A., L. Huang, S.L. Pallas (2003) NMDA receptor blockade in the superior colliculus increases receptive field size without altering velocity and size tuning. J Neurophysiol 90:110-119. http://jn.physiology.org/content/90/1/110.long