To understand how the brain functions, researchers must be able to functionally manipulate specific types of neurons to determine which behaviors they control. Light-based methods (optogenetics) for stimulating neurons have…
Astrocytes are one of the most abundant cell types in the central nervous system, but for a long time these cells were considered to act as passive “glue” supporting neuronal…
Understanding how the brain’s many neurons coordinate their activity to perform behavioral tasks is a significant problem that, if solved, can lead to new developments in understanding and treating mental…
One of the fundamental scientific challenges of our time is to understand how the brain works. To achieve this, we must precisely manipulate neurons to observe resultant physiological or behavioral…
Huntington’s disease (HD) is an incurable brain disease that afflicts roughly 1 in every 10,000 people in the United States. HD is associated with movement problems, cognitive deficits, and psychiatric…
Somatosensory information (e.g. touch, temperature, pain) is an essential part of our perception of the outside world. The peripheral sensory neurons that receive this information connect to neurons in the…
Autism is a strongly genetic disorder. Genetic mutations can arise in somatic cells, which are the non-reproductive cells of the body, during the development. In this application, we will examine…
The monoamine neuromodulators—dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin—are critical for human behavior and are at the root of many psychiatric and neurological diseases. Most studies that address the function of these neuromodulators in…
This study addresses a critical biological and biomedical problem, molecular control of synaptic reprogramming. Our goals are to dissect the pathways that control how neurons alter connections with synaptic partners…
Although a majority of the population will experience a severe trauma at some point in their lifetime, only about 10% of those people will go on to develop PTSD, which…
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