Shannon Saszik Ph.D.

Acting Chair, Associate Professor
Office:
Room BBH 307 B
Phone:
(773) 442-5839
Email:
s-saszik@neiu.edu
Office Hours:
By appointment.
Country:
United States
Expertise
Neuropsychology, Physiological Psychology, Sensation and Perception, Animal Research
Survey of Psychology
Human Perception
Visual Neuroscience
Physiological Psychology
Physiological Lab
Social Neuroscience
Neuropsychology
Special Topics in Human Developmental Science (G)
Values, Decision Making for Responsible Conduct in Research (G)
Research Interests
My research interests focus on examination of the processing of information in the brain through parallel pathways, and ultimately how that processing impacts behavior and choice. Using both studies that examine the bottom up, data signals that are coded by the sensory receptors and topa down, knowledge signals that are based on prior experience, projects in the Neuropsychology Lab address questions related to the interaction between these two systems. My long-term goal is to understand the relationship between data and knowledge to determine how the dependence on one over the other can be altered given changes to both internal (physiological) and external (environmental) cues.
Education
M.A. Experimental Psychology
Ph.D. Neuroscience
Selected Publications
Saszik, S. M., & Smith, C. M. (2018). The impact of stress on social behavior in adult zebrafish (Danio rerio). Behavioural pharmacology, 29(1), 53–59.
Saszik, S., & DeVries, S. H. (2012). A mammalian retinal bipolar cell uses both graded changes in membrane voltage and all-or-nothing Na+ spikes to encode light. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 32(1), 297–307.
Bilotta, J., Barnett, J. A., Hancock, L., & Saszik, S. (2004). Ethanol exposure alters zebrafish development: a novel model of fetal alcohol syndrome. Neurotoxicology and teratology, 26(6), 737–743.
Saszik, S., Alexander, A., Lawrence, T., & Bilotta, J. (2002). APB differentially affects the cone contributions to the zebrafish ERG. Visual neuroscience, 19(4), 521–529.
Saszik, S. M., Robson, J. G., & Frishman, L. J. (2002). The scotopic threshold response of the dark-adapted electroretinogram of the mouse. The Journal of physiology, 543(Pt 3), 899–916.