in 1944 bullock accepted a faculty position at the university of missouri, where he taught medical students anatomy and physiology. two years later he joined the faculty at university of california, los angeles (ucla), where he remained for the next twenty years. during this time, he helped pioneer the field of comparative and integrative neurobiology. in one series of famous experiments on the cardiac ganglion in lobsters, bullock demonstrated that neurons can communicate not just via action potential and chemical synapse, but through non-synaptic interactions without such impulses. today we know that this type of electrical interaction is mediated by gap junctions. this idea, that electrical synapses couple groups of cells into functional units, lead to bullock’s lifelong interest in field potentials, which are generated by the summated electrical activity of millions of brain cells. bullock was a respected teacher who taught many courses while at ucla, such as zoology and advanced invertebrate biology. he spent the summers of 1955-1957 at woods hole as the director of the invertebrate zoology course.