Division of Environmental Health Sciences
College of Public Health
Department of Neuroscience
College  of Medicine

Darryl Hood recently joined the faculty of the College of Public Health from Meharry Medical College where he interrogated hypotheses on the mechanisms governing neurotoxicity of environmental chemicals for nearly two decades. Seminal work conducted in his laboratory demonstrated for the first time, the functional impact of in utero exposure to benzo(a)pyrene on later-life behavioral phenotypes mediated by maturing glutamatergic cortical circuits. From his work, the field has learned that postnatal brain development requires input from the environment in order to induce the release of glutamate and thereby promote critical aspects of synaptic maturation.

Research Interests

• Inhalation Toxicology (prenatal exposure models autism)
• Developmental neurobiology (somatosensory cortex)
• Behavioral neurobiology (development of structure-specific paradigms)
• Environmental and biochemical toxicology (Nitroxides, PAH’s)
• Dispersion modeling of PAH’s in environmental justice communities
• Structural biology, protein structure and function
• Environmental-exposure health assessment questionnaire development
• Modeling exposures across lifetime using public health exposome approach

 CV