Email

jackson.brougher@bcm.edu

Positions

Assistant Professor

Center for Space Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine

Education

PhD from University of Texas at Dallas

Richardson, Texas United States

Systems Neuroscience

BSc from University of Aberdeen

Aberdeen, Scotland United Kingdom

Neuroscience with Psychology and Industrial Placement

Professional Statement

I am a neuroscientist-by-training turned space health researcher, now serving as an Assistant Professor and Space Health Research Scientist in the Center for Space Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. My current work focuses on EXPAND, the commercial spaceflight biobank and data platform, and on building informatics and operational pipelines that transform multiomic, physiologic, and wearable telemetry into countermeasures that crews can actually use when medical support is distant or delayed.

Prior to joining Baylor College of Medicine I researched mechanisms of targeted neural plasticity at the University of Texas at Dallas as the focus of my PhD, and shortly thereafter had the opportunity to work as an entrepeneur developing treatments for chronic pain.

That experience now informs how I think about research programs for extreme environments such as low Earth orbit, lunar transit, and eventual Mars missions. I am interested in the practical questions that sit between biology and engineering: how to capture the right signals in flight, how to integrate them with context from ground analogs, and how to return value to both astronauts and the broader biomedical community. I believe that space provides the catalyst for scientific progress, and it is up to us as a scientific community to utilize it.

I care deeply about mentorship and about lowering the barrier for young scientists who want to build things that matter outside a traditional lab. I also believe that data generated with public support should be maximally useful, so I invest time in governance, standards, and sharing practices that let others stand on our shoulders rather than start from scratch.

Selected Publications

• Brougher J, Aziz U, Adari N, Chaturvedi M, Jules A, Shah I, Syed S, Thorn CA "Self-administration of right vagus nerve stimulation activates midbrain dopaminergic nuclei.." Frontiers in Neuroscience. 2021 Dec;
• Truong V, Brougher J, Strassmaier T, Lu I, George D, Price TJ, Obergrussberger A, Randolph A, Haedo RJ, Fertig N, Walsh P. "Transcriptomic analysis and high throughput functional characterization of human induced pluripotent stem cell derived sensory neurons.." bioRxiv. 2024 Aug;
• Brougher J, Sanchez CA, Aziz US, Gove KF, Thorn CA. "Vagus nerve stimulation induced motor map plasticity does not require cortical dopamine.." Frontiers in Neuroscience. 2021 Aug;
• Tseng CT, Brougher J, Gaulding SJ, Hassan BS, Thorn CA. "Vagus nerve stimulation promotes cortical reorganization and reduces task-dependent calorie intake in male and female rats.." Brain Research. 2020 Dec;