Biological Science Faculty Member
Dr. Thomas A. Houpt
- Office: 3010 King Life Sciences
- Office: (850) 644-4907
- Area: Neuroscience
- Lab: King Life Sciences
- Lab: (850) 644-4906
- Fax: (850) 645-8447
- Mail code: 4295
- E-mail: houpt@bio.fsu.edu
Personal Home Page 
Lab website
Chairman and Professor
Ph.D., Harvard University, 1991
Graduate Faculty Status
Research and Professional Interests:
The taste and smell of food can evoke strong memories. The strength and importance of food learning makes it a good system for exploration of the behavior, neurology, and molecular biology of learning and memory. I use a simple but robust model of learning: conditioned taste aversion, in which rats learn to reject a palatable solution after it is paired with a toxin (LiCl). Behavioral studies are combined with brain lesions, neuroanatomical imaging, and single-cell RNA amplification for study of the patterns of gene expression underlying long-term changes in the rat's ingestive behavior.
Selected Publications:
Eckel, L. A., T. A. Houpt, and N. Geary. 2000. Spontaneous meal patterns in female Long-Evans rats with and without access to running wheels. Physiol. Behav. 70: 397-405.
Snyder, D., J. W. Jahng, J. C. Smith, and T. A. Houpt. 2000. c-Fos induction in visceral and vestibular nuclei of the rat brainstem by a 9.4 T magnetic field. Neuroreport 11: 2681-2685. Jahng, J. W., and T. A. Houpt. 2001. MK801 increases feeding and decreases drinking in non-deprived, freely-feeding rats. Pharmacol. Biochem. Behav. 68: 181-186.
Stafstrom-Davis, C. A., C. C. Ouimet, J. Feng, P. D. Allen, P. Greengard, and T. A. Houpt. 2001. Impaired conditioned taste aversion learning in spinophillin knockout mice. Learn. Mem. 8: 272-288.
Spencer, C. M., and T. A. Houpt. 2001. Dynamics of c-Fos and ICER mRNA expression in rat forebrain following lithium chloride injection. Mol. Brain Res. 93: 113-126.
Jahng, J. W., D. G. Kim, and T. A. Houpt. 2001. Subdiaphragmatic vagotomy induces NADPH diaphorase in the rat dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus. Yonsei Med. J. 42: 215-219.
Davidson, A. J., B. J.Aragona, T. A. Houpt, and F. K. Stephan. 2001. Persistence of meal-entrained circadian rhythms following area postrema lesions in the rat. Physiol. Behav. 74:349-354.
Liu, Y., J. T. Curtis, C. D. Fowler, C. M. Spencer, T. A. Houpt, and Z. Wang. 2001. Differential expression of vasopressin, oxytocin, and corticotropin-realsing hormone messenger RNA in the paraventricular nucleus of the prairie vole brain following stress. J. Neuroendocrinol. 13: 1059-1065.