Getting good reception.

The human brain contains hundreds of billions of neurons and connections, all busily engaged in transmitting the specialized electrical messages that allow the mind and body to sense and respond to the myriad stimuli encountered each moment of every day. In the NIEHS Laboratory of Signal Transduction, scientists study the mechanisms by which environmental agents disrupt these neural pathways, thereby altering neurophysiological processes and, sometimes, causing or exacerbating environmentally related disease. Neuroscientist Jerrel L. Yakel, who heads the Ion Channel Physiology Group within the Laboratory of Signal Transduction, studies neurotransmitter receptors, proteins found on the surface of nerve cells that bind endogenous and exogenous chemical signaling agents.