Arnold, Don
Professor of Biological Sciences
The Arnold lab develops molecular tools for studying and manipulating neural circuits. We have developed novel recombinant probes known as FingRs, which label synaptic proteins such as PSD95, Gephyrin, and CamKii with high fidelity without causing off-target effects. We have used FingRs to visualize the formation of memories in larval zebrafish. These probes can also be used to ablate synapses, leading to functional disruption of neural circuits in a fast, efficient, and reversible manner. More recently, we developed ATLAS, a protein that mediates anterograde tracing of neural circuits from genetically determined neurons. We believe that ATLAS and its variants for tracing neuromodulatory circuits will be powerful tools for observing and manipulating neural circuits in the context of living organisms.
Chang, Karen T.
Associate Professor of Physiology and Neuroscience
Our lab is interested in understanding how neurons communicate with high fidelity to support complex brain functions. We aim to uncover the molecular and cellular mechanisms that enable precise synaptic signaling and to explore how disruptions in these processes contribute to neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders. Using Drosophila melanogaster as a genetically tractable model system, we integrate electrophysiology, molecular biology, confocal imaging, proteomics, and behavioral analysis to investigate synaptic function and plasticity.
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).
Herring, Bruce
Associate Professor of Biological Sciences
The Herring lab integrates in vivo calcium imaging, machine learning-enhanced behavioral analysis, and ex vivo brain slice electrophysiology to understand the development of ASD/ID and psychiatric disorders in the brain.
Hires, Samuel Andrew
Associate Professor of Biological Sciences
The Hires lab is investigating the basis of biological intelligence. Over the past decade we developed numerous imaging tools to record large-scale patterns of neural activity that are used by thousands of neuroscience labs. These have resulted in hundreds of publicly available datasets embedded with rich representations of neural activity. We are now developing analytical tools, using recent AI developments, to ultimately distill undiscovered principles of biological intelligence from these datasets.
Hirsch, Judith A.
Gabilan Distinguished Professorship in Science and Engineering and Professor of Biological Sciences
Our laboratory studies the thalamus, the interface between neocortex and the sensory periphery. Thalamus was once regarded as a simple gatekeeper, passively relaying information during waking and shielding neocortex from disturbance during sleep, but this is an impoverished view. We explore how thalamus, itself, contributes to sensory integration. In particular, we study the structure of neural circuits in the visual part of thalamus, how these operate during vision and how they extract and recode information from the eye. Our work shows how thalamus might contribute to visual processing by, for example, sharpening the visual image and increasing the efficiency of the neural code. Because circuits in different parts of thalamus are similar, our work pertains to thalamic function in general.
