Professor Keverne has long standing experience in behavioural neuroscience and has, in the past 10 years, brought molecular genetic techniques to focus on brain development and investigate how genetic perturbations of the brain influence brain function. In particular he has employed androgenetic and parthenogenetic chimeras to understand how the imprinted genome influences brain development and has extensively investigated the adult phenotype of mice carrying a mutation in paternally expressed genes. These studies have led to a co-adaptive evolutionary theory of brain and placental development through genomic imprinting. Pheromonal influences on behaviour and endocrine responses in mice is also a long standing interest and in recent years, together with Piers Emson, he has investigated pheromonal signalling via Erk and Akt phosphorylation to enhance vomeronasal neural regeneration survival.
