Circuit basis of motivated behaviors in psychiatric disease
Psychiatric disorders were historically thought to arise from a brain-wide chemical imbalance in neurotransmitter levels, but it is now becoming clear that they involve much more complex and subtle alterations in neural dynamics across specific synapses and networks in the brain. Our lab aims to understand the neural circuits underlying motivated behaviors and how they are perturbed in psychiatric diseases such as anxiety, autism, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
We are interested in the molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate neural stem cell function during the generation and maintenance of the brain. For example, what genes and pathways that control stem cell quiescence, self-renewal, and differentiation? How do stem cells respond to brain injury?
We are interested in understanding how the extensive morphological, molecular and functional diversity of neural cell types is achieved during development of the central nervous system. We focus our studies on the forebrain, with particular attention to the cortex and the septal nuclei of the basal forebrain. Our long-term goal is to understand how genetic and epigenetic programs associated with a progenitor cells spatial and temporal identity dictates their fate choice.
Potassium Channels and Calcium-activated Chloride Channels
Conserved among eukaryotes and prokaryotes, potassium channels modulate neuronal signaling in the brain and peripheral nervous system, regulate cell volume and the flow of salt across epithelia, and control heart rate, vascular tone, and the release of hormones such as insulin. They further protect neurons and muscles under metabolic stress.
