Dias, Brian George
Associate Professor of Developmental Neuroscience & Neurogenetics
Our research seeks to understand not only how mammalian neurobiology, physiology and reproductive biology is impacted by psychosocial and nutritional stress but also how parental legacies of such stressors influence offspring. To achieve this understanding, we employ a lifespan approach to study how stressors affect: sperm/egg/embryo (pre-conceptional stress), the gestating fetus (in utero stress), and the developing infant (post-natal stress). Our experimental approaches include assaying learning-memory-motivation, virus-mediated manipulation of neuronal activity and gene expression, (epi)genetic profiling of cells, in vivo fiber photometry and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).
Kanoski, Scott
Professor of Biological Sciences
The prevalence of obesity has exploded over the past 40 years. The biological systems that underlie the excessive eating behavior contributing to obesity onset remain poorly understood. Our research goal is to discover the neural systems and psychological processes that control energy balance, with a particular focus on understanding the neurobiological substrates that regulate obesity-promoting behaviors such as food impulsivity and environmental cue-induced feeding. Another primary focus of our lab is to study how the brain is negatively impacted by dietary and metabolic factors. Consumption of Western diets (high in saturated fatty acids and sugars) not only contributes to obesity development, but also produces deficits in learning and memory capabilities and can even increase the risk for developing dementia. We are currently examining the specific causal dietary factors, critical developmental periods, and neurobiological mechanisms underlying diet-induced cognitive decline. Ongoing research identifies the gut microbiome as a critical link between unhealthy junk food diets and neurocognition.
Liman, Emily
Harold W. Dornsife Chair in Neuroscience and Professor of Biological Sciences
The Liman lab studies how ion channels enable sensory cells to convert chemical and mechanical cues into electrical signals. We discovered the Otopetrin (OTOP) family of proton-selective ion channels and showed that OTOP1 is the long-sought sour-taste receptor as well as a detector of ammonium. Using patch-clamp electrophysiology, structure-guided mutagenesis, cryo-EM, and in vivo genetics we aim to reveal how protons permeate OTOP pores, how gating is tuned by pH and lipids, and how channel activity shapes taste, balance, and metabolic physiology. Ongoing projects extend these questions to other OTOP isoforms combining medium-throughput screening with computational modeling to identify first-in-class modulators and mouse genetics to identify and manipulate cells that express OTOP channels. Students gain rigorous cross-disciplinary training in membrane biophysics and sensory neuroscience while working in a collaborative, inclusive environment.
Moore, Jeffrey
Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences
Many mammals sense and affect their environment predominantly through innate motor programs for exploration, social interaction, and ingestion; yet, little is known about the neuronal circuits that control these motor programs. Our lab uses molecular, systems, and computational neurobiological techniques to identify specific brainstem motor control modules and to determine how higher-order brain structures engage these modules for innate behaviors.
Schier, Lindsey
Associate Professor of Biological Sciences
The Schier lab seeks to understand how the chemical constituents of foods and fluids are sensed, how these oral and postoral signals are processed in the brain and channeled into the behavioral outputs that subserve energy balance.
Watts, Alan
Professor of Biological Sciences
My work focuses on understanding how the brain contributes to the development, manifestation, and complications of diabetes and obesity, primarily on how this happens at the neural network level. In particular, I am interested in how interoceptive and exteroceptive signals interact with the brain to control endocrine and behavioral responses to energy deficits. Currently I am using neuroinformatic methods to explore how the rat brain connectome can reveal the organization of the control networks that influence the behavioral, endocrine, and autonomic motor events associated with metabolic physiology and its dysfunction.
