Prof. Linda Parker was featured in a Mar. 27 Popular Science story about how she uses rats — which are unable to vomit — to study how to control nausea and vomiting in humans.
A professor in the Department of Psychology, Parker said rats are a good model to study nausea because they easily become nauseous. By studying rats, she and her research team discovered the part of the brain that produces nausea, and they can now look at ways to treat queasiness.
Parker researches modulation of the pharmacological properties of drugs with specific applications in controlling nausea and vomiting in humans.