Peter Grigg, Ph.D.

Academic Role: Professor Emeritus

Faculty Appointment(s) In:
   Physiology

Joint Faculty In:
   Brudnick Neuropsychiatric Research Institute

Other Affiliation(s):
   Program in Neuroscience

Stretch Sensor Neurons in Skin

I study mechanical – evoked neuronal behavior sensitivity in cutaneous mechanoreceptor neurons. M y goals are to understand the local mechanical states in the skin that activate afferent neurons. I am currently using isolated skin – nerve preparations from rodent models to study the role of shear stress and shear strain in activating stretch - sensitive mechanoreceptor neurons.  A second project seeks to understand how periodic stimuli cause phase – locked responses in afferent neurons driven by hair movements.

Representative Publications

Robichaud DR & Grigg P.  Responses of RA afferents to Biaxial Stretch Stimuli.  J Neurophysiology, 92:484-91, 2004.

Z. Del Prete, S. Antoniucci, A. H. Hoffman and P. Grigg.  Viscoelastic Properties of Skin in Mov-13 and Tsk Mice.  J Biomechanics, 37(10):1491-1497, 2004.

Grigg P, Robichaud DR, and Del Prete Z.   Properties of Mouse Cutaneous RA Afferents: Relationship to Skin Viscoelasticity.  J Neurophysiology, 92:1236–1240, 2004.

Del Prete, Z., Baker S.P., and Grigg P.  Stretch Responses of Cutaneous RA Afferent Neurons in Mouse Hairy Skin.  J Neurophysiology, 89:1649-1659, 2003. 

Robichaud, D. R., Del Prete, Z., and Grigg, P.    Stretch Sensitivity of Cutaneous RA Mechanoreceptors in Rat Hairy Skin.  J Neurophysiology, 90:2065 – 2068, 2003.

Hoffman, A.H. and Grigg, P.   Using Uniaxial Pseudorandom Stress Stimuli to Develop Soft Tissue Constitutive Equations.  Annals of Biomedical Engineering, 30:44-50, 2002.

Potential Rotation Projects

1. Studies of stretch responses in (a) rapidly adapting or (b) C fiber afferent mechanoreceptor neurons in mouse skin using mice with various skin phenotypes.
2. Modeling of micromechanical response of skin to dynamic stretching.

Academic Background

BS, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1961
MS, Syracuse University, 1965
PhD, SUNY Upstate Medical Center, 1969

Office: S4-245
Phone: 508-856-2457
Fax: 508-856-5997
E-mail: Peter.Grigg@umassmed.edu
Keywords: Biophysics

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