Rate My Professor Kevin Cummings

Kevin Cummings is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine, serving as Interim Director of the Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center. Holding a B.Sc. with Distinction in Biology from the University of Victoria in 1995, he earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Endocrinology from the same institution in 2003 under Prof. Nancy M. Sherwood, investigating the murine PACAP gene's role in metabolism and cardiovascular function. His postdoctoral training spanned the University of Calgary with Prof. Richard J.A. Wilson, La Trobe University with Prof. Peter B. Frappell, and Dartmouth College with Prof. Eugene E. Nattie, building expertise in respiratory and cardiovascular physiology.

Cummings directs an NIH-funded laboratory focused on central neural control of breathing, cardiovascular function, autonomic activity, and sleep-wake states, particularly the roles of brainstem serotonin (5-HT) and orexin neurons in neonatal development. Research elucidates how serotonergic defects precipitate apnea, bradycardia, and hypotension during sleep, compromising arousal and autoresuscitation from hypoxia—key factors in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Additional projects probe orexin's modulation of chemoreflexes and ventilatory responses, influenced by sex and estrous phase; serotonin's contributions to neurogenic hypertension; and its implications for heart failure. Techniques include polysomnography in freely behaving rodents, DREADDs for chemogenetic manipulation, focal microinjections, and transcriptomics. Select publications are Ben Musa et al., 'Orexin facilitates the peripheral chemoreflex via corticotropin releasing hormone neurons projecting to the nucleus of the solitary tract' (Journal of Neuroscience, 2024); Cummings et al., 'Altered 5-HT2A/C receptor binding in the medulla oblongata in the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS): Part II' (Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology, 2024); Ben Musa et al., 'The effect of orexin on the hypoxic ventilatory response of female rats is greatest in the active phase during diestrus' (Journal of Applied Physiology, 2023); Spinieli et al., 'A serotonin-deficient rat model of neurogenic hypertension: influence of sex and sympathetic vascular tone' (Journal of Neurophysiology, 2022); and Spinieli et al., 'Orexin facilitates the ventilatory and behavioral responses of rats to hypoxia' (American Journal of Physiology - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, 2022).