Profile
I obtained both my PhD and my BSc (Hons) from Monash University with the former being awarded in 1976. I then undertook post-doctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco, in a joint project of Physiology, Neurology and the Liver Center from 1976 to 1978. After this I spent 3 years in the Department of Pharmacology at the John Curtin School of Medical Research as a Research Fellow, before joining the Department of Human Physiology at Flinders University School of Medicine in Adelaide as the first Australian Post-doctoral Fellow of the NHMRC. After several years at Flinders, I was appointed a Research Fellow of the NHMRC and Senior Lecturer in Human Physiology at Flinders at the start of 1988. In 1991, I joined the Department of Physiology at the University of Melbourne as a Senior Lecturer and have subsequently been promoted first to Associate Professor (1996), to Associate Professor and Reader (beginning 2005) and to Professor (July 2005).
Teaching
Convenor & Lecturer:
536-303 The Brain: Neurophysiology of Behaviour
Co-convenor & Lecturer
516-209 Introductory Neuroscience (Science)
511-225 Introductory Neuroscience (Dental Science)
Lecturer
521-213 Integrated Biomedical Science I (Biomedical Science)
536-250 Integrated Biomedical Science II (Biomedical Science)
536-311 Molecular/Cellular Basis of Physiology (Science)
Project supervisor:
516-307 Projects in Anatomy/Physiology/Pharmacology
536-304 Seminars and Projects in Physiology
Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program Supervisor
Service to the University, discipline
or community and recent presentations
Executive Secretary: International Society for Autonomic Neuroscience
Review Editor: Autonomic Neuroscience: Clinical and Basic
Member NHMRC Grant Review Panel 4a
Member ARC Grant Readers Panel (OzReader)
Member NHF Grant Assessors Panel
Project Assessor NZ Health Research Council
Presentations:
Enteric Nervous System, Banff, Canada July 2003, Invited speaker: Synaptic transmission in intestinal reflex pathways
Australian Neuroscience Society, Adelaide SA, January 2003, Invited symposium speaker, Advances on the enteric nervous system – from channels to intestinal motility
Smooth Muscle in Health and Disease, Port Douglas Qld, September 2004, Invited speaker, Nutrient induced intestinal motility: Its not just a tapeworm in there
Division of Neuroscience, John Curtin School of Medical Research, Canberra, July 2003, Invited Seminar, Role of the enteric nervous system in nutrient induced segmentation
Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, University College London, December 2003, Invited seminar, Purinergic transmission at synapses in the enteric nervous system: ATP might be a transmitter after all
Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, December 2003, Seminar, Dementias: lessons from computer modeling
Combined Howard Florey Institute, Department of Physiology Seminar Program, April 2004, Seminar, Studies of intestinal motility
Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Antwerp, Belgium, May 2004, Invited seminar, Role of enteric nervous system in the control of intestinal motility
ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematics and Statistics of Complex Systems, University of Melbourne, December 2004, Invited Seminar, How we process what we eat: The enteric nervous system and its control of intestinal functions
Research
Profile, Interests and Recent Publications
My major research interest is in the neural mechanisms that control intestinal motor functions underlying the digestive process, including both muscle movement and the secretion of water and salt by the mucosa. This work involves a range of experimental methods ranging from electrophysiological analysis of synaptic transmission in reflex pathways, to immunohistochemical analysis of enteric neural circuits, to measurements of intestinal movements and secretions both in vitro and in vivo and computer simulation of the networks of neurons that mediate these functions. Much of this work, especially that involving interactions between intestinal movements and secretion, is carried out in close collaboration with Prof Henrik Sjövall of Göteborg’s University in Sweden.
Other international collaborations include a study of the effects of aging on the behaviour of the intestine with Prof Tim Cowen of the Royal Free campus of University College London and a study of the role of P2 receptors in regulation of intestinal secretion with Prof Helen Cox of King’s College Medical School (London).
My Melbourne collaborators include Dr Heather Young of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Melbourne, on a study of the development of intestinal movements in the mouse and Drs Julie Bines and Bridget Southwell of the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute on a study of the adaptive changes of small intestine in pigs with surgically induced short bowel syndrome.
Recent Publications:
THOMAS EA & BORNSTEIN JC Inhibitory cotransmission or after hyperpolarizing potentials can regulate firing in recurrent networks with excitatory metabotropic transmission. Neuroscience 120, 333-351 (2003)
Gwynne RM, Thomas EA, Goh SM, Sjövall H & Bornstein JC (2004) Segmentation induced by intraluminal fatty acid in isolated guinea-pig duodenum and jejunum. J. Physiol. (Lond.) 556, 557-569.
Johnson PJ & Bornstein JC (2004) Neurokinin-1 and -3 receptor blockade inhibits slow excitatory synaptic transmission in myenteric neurons and reveals slow inhibitory input. Neuroscience 126, 137-147.
Monro RL, Bertrand PP & Bornstein JC (2004) ATP participates in three excitatory post-synaptic potentials in the submucous plexus of the guinea-pig ileum. J. Physiol. (Lond.) 556, 571-584.
Thomas EA, Sjövall H & Bornstein JC (2004) Computational model of the migrating motor complex of the small intestine. Am. J. Physiol. Gastrointest. Liver Physiol. 286, G564-G572.
Research
Funding
NHMRC: Neural mechanisms mediating hypersecretion and motility patterns induced by enterotoxins. Bornstein (CI)
NHMRC: Mechanisms regulating nutrient induced motor patterns in the isolated small intestine. Bornstein
Swedish Medical Research Council: Mechanisms coupling motility and secretion in the rat small intestine in vivo. Sjövall, Bornstein, Thomas, Lindstrom, Jödall
MCRI Project grant: Intestinal adaptation following massive small bowel resection: characterisation of changes in intestinal motility and novel therapies. Bines, Southwell, Paris, Fuller, Bornstein, Taylor
Supervisor
Mark Hargreaves
Currently
Supervised Staff/Students
Melina Ellis
Kath Neal
Rachel Gwynne
Jacqueline Chambers
Colin Hales
Rachael Roberts
Kulmira Nurgali
Jaime Foong
Kathryn Marks
Linette Tan
Gordon Marshall
