Skip to main content

Dr Eugene O'Hare

Photo of Eugene O'Hare

Senior Lecturer

Email: e.ohare@qub.ac.uk

Address

Room 0G.446, David Keir Building
School of Psychology
Queen's University Belfast
Belfast, BT7 1NN
Northern Ireland, UK

Telephone

+44 (0)28 9097 4439

Profile
Teaching
Research
Publications

Biography

Obtained B.Sc. (Hons.) and Ph.D. degrees in Northern Ireland then went straight to the U.S.A. First job in the United States was Postdoctoral Research Associate in Behavioural Neurophysiology at the Institute for Disability Studies of the University of Minnesota. From there, through nationally competitive programmes within the U.S.A., was awarded consecutive National Research Service Postdoctoral Fellowships (from the National Institutes of Health), first at the Department of Medicine, then at the Department of Psychiatry, and finally at the Department of Pharmacology of the University of Minnesota. This resulted in appointment as Research Health Science Specialist at the Department of Veterans Affairs Hospital Minneapolis. After many years, returned to Northern Ireland and joined the staff of the School of Psychology at Queen’s University. In the United States, had the great privilege and pleasure of benefiting from the advice, supervision and friendship of Prof. James P. Cleary, perhaps the leading expert in the world on the application and modelling of laboratory techniques to behavioural analysis of the experimentally generated effects of physiologically-induced and pharmacologically-induced changes in the brain, and of Prof. Allen S. Levine, possibly the leading expert in the world on brain opioid systems.

Current industrial collaborations are with Senexis Ltd, Cambridge; and NeuroSolutions Ltd, Coventry. Current scientific collaborations are with the Behavioral Pharmacology Laboratory, University of Minnesota; School of Medicine, University of Warwick; Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin; the Behavioral Genetics Laboratory, University of Tennessee; Department of Biochemistry, United Arab Emirates University; and Gachon BioNano Research Institute, Republic of Korea.

School of Psychology Administrative Roles

  • Adviser of Studies
  • Module Co-ordinator PSY1002 Level 1 Introductory Psychology II
  • Module Co-ordinator PSY3088 Level 3 Psychopharmacology
  • Director of Behavioural Neuropsychophysiology Laboratory
  • PSY1002 Introductory Psychology II.
  • PSY1005 Thinking Critically About Popular Psychology II.
  • PSY2059 Group Project.
  • PSY3088 Psychopharmacology.
  • Level 3 Thesis.

Member of the Behaviour Development and Welfare Research Cluster

  • Neuropsychophysiological effects of amyloid-beta in Alzheimer’s disease.
  • The role of alpha-synuclein in Lewy body dementias.
  • Brain opioid peptide effects on motivation and reward.
  • Operant modelling of consummatory behaviours.
  • Implications of nanoparticle interactions in the brain.

Recent Research Outputs in the Scientific Journal Literature

O’Hare, E., Scopes, D.I., Treherne, J.M., Monaghan, J., Palmer, P.M., Amijee, H. and Kim, E-M. (2011). Novel anti-inflammatory compound SEN1176 alleviates behavioural deficits induced following bilateral intrahippocampal injection of aggregated amyloid-b1-42. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, 25, 219-229.

Whyment, A.D., Coderre, E., Wilson, J.M., Renaud, L.P., O’Hare, E. and Spanswick, D. (2011). Electrophysiological, pharmacological and molecular profile of the transient outward rectifying conductance in rat sympathetic preganglionic neurons in vitro. Neuroscience, 178, 68-81.

Recent Conference Presentations

O’Hare, E. and Kim, E-M. (2011). Translation of in vitro observations to in vivo applications. Hanyang University Symposium on Nanomedical Applications, Seoul, Republic of Korea.

O’Hare, E. and Kim, E-M. (2011). Evaluation of thyroxyne replacement in an animal model of congenital hypothyroidism. Twentieth Asian Conference on Intellectual Disabilities, Jeju, Republic of Korea.

O’Hare E. and Kim, E-M. (2011). Effect of an enriched environment using an animal model of Alzheimer’s disease. Twenty First World Congress on Psychosomatic Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.

O’Hare, E., Spanswick, D., Jeggo, R., Virdee, J. and Kim, E-M. (2011). Survival analysis of fixed consecutive number responding in APP over-expressing transgenic rats. Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease, Paris, France.

Amijee, H., O’Hare, E., Palmer, P., Jeggo, R., Jones, M., Whyment, A., Spanswick, D., Kim, E-M., Scopes, D., Nerou, E. and Treherne, J.M. (2011). SEN1500, an inhibitor of amyloid-beta oligomer toxicity protects memory in models of Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease, Paris, France.

Kim, E-M., Quinn, J.G., Reid, R. and O’Hare, E. (2011). Injection of melanocortin into the NTS alters feeding induced by injection of neuropeptide-Y into the PVN. Thirty Fifth British Feeding and Drinking Group Conference, Belfast, U.K.