Margaret A. Vizzard

BIO

Dr. Margaret A. Vizzard serves as the Vice Chair of Education and the Vice Chair of Basic, Clinical, and Translational Research in the Department of Neurological Sciences. In these roles, she oversees the department’s broad educational mission across multiple learner groups, including undergraduate, graduate, and medical students, as well as residents. 

She also provides leadership for the department’s diverse research portfolio. Dr. Vizzard directs the Neuro‑Urology Laboratory, which has been investigating the mechanisms underlying urinary bladder dysfunction for more than 30 years. 

She is the course director and a lecturer for Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Biomedical Research (NSCI 6270)—a course created in response to concerns that trainees and even faculty often enter research environments without adequate grounding in scientific norms, ethical conduct, or the regulatory framework governing biomedical research. 

She also contributes to a scientific writing workshop for graduate students in the Neuroscience Graduate Program. 

The Vizzard Laboratory focuses on the neural control, organization, and neurochemical and electrical properties of the urinary bladder and examines how these properties change following neural injury, psychogenic stress, during disease, or across early postnatal development. Current rodent models of bladder dysfunction include spinal cord injury, peripheral nerve injury, acute and chronic cystitis, bladder pain syndrome, Parkinson’s disease, and partial bladder outlet obstruction. Laboratory research aims to characterize the plastic changes associated with injury, stress, disease, or maturation, identify the factors driving these changes, and develop interventional strategies to improve bladder function in compromised systems. Ongoing efforts emphasize the roles of neuropeptides and growth factors in voiding dysfunction, along with an expanding interest in the contribution of TRP channels. A recent collaborative project among colleagues in Neurological Sciences, Psychology, and Chemistry at UVM examines the role of pituitary adenylate cyclase‑activating polypeptide (PACAP) in stress‑induced bladder dysfunction. The Vizzard Laboratory uses a multidisciplinary experimental approach. Techniques include conventional and transneuronal tracing with neurotropic viruses (e.g., pseudorabies virus and herpes simplex virus) to map bladder reflex circuitry; immunostaining for neuroactive compounds to assess shifts in signaling balance; biochemical and molecular studies to evaluate central (spinal cord) and peripheral (dorsal root ganglia, pelvic ganglia, bladder) changes; whole‑cell patch‑clamp and intracellular recordings from dorsal root and pelvic ganglion neurons to assess excitability; whole‑animal bladder function testing to evaluate responses to interventions; in vitro analyses of bladder strip contractility; calcium imaging in urothelial preparations; and ex vivo assays of distention‑evoked ATP release from the urothelium.

Publications

ORCiD Publications

Awards and Achievements

• Research Laureate, Larner College of Medicine at The University of Vermont
• Colleen A. and Gregory L. Holmes Green and Gold Professor in Neurological Sciences Research, The Larner College of Medicine at The University of Vermont
• University of Vermont University Scholar
• University of Vermont Young Investigator Award
• Society for Basic Urologic Research/Merck NRSA 
• Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh, School of Medicine NIMH
• Postdoctoral Fellowshp, University of Pittsburgh